I. Summary

There will be blood on the street if the government does
not call off the dispersal operations. Our patience is running out. We will
take more serious measures to retaliate. The dark sky will turn red, red like
blood.

—Jatuporn Prompan, Red Shirt leader, Bangkok, April
10, 2010

It is hard for the army to give explanations about every
single dead body in Bangkok.

During the mass political mobilization from March to May
2010, Thailand endured the most violent confrontations since the protests
against military rule in 1992. At least 90 people died and more than 2,000 were
wounded in clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters led
by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), also known as
“Red Shirts.” Arson attacks in Bangkok and elsewhere caused
billions of dollars of damage.

While the political protests, which paralyzed the capital
for three months, received global coverage, many of the deaths and injuries
occurred beyond the view of news cameras. Fueled by a lack of information, the
UDD and government have traded claims and counterclaims about who was
responsible for the loss of life.

Based on investigations conducted in Bangkok and in
Thailand’s central and northeastern regions from June 2010 to April 2011,
this report provides the first full account of the violence and the reasons
behind it. The high death toll and injuries resulted from excessive and
unnecessary lethal force on the part of security forces, including firing of live
ammunition at protesters, sometimes by snipers. Soldiers fatally shot at least four
people, including a medic treating the wounded, in or near a temple in Bangkok
on May 19, despite army claims to the contrary. The extensive casualties also
resulted from deliberate attacks by militant armed elements of the UDD, whose
leaders contributed to the violence with inflammatory speeches to demonstrators,
including urging their supporters to carry out riots, arson attacks, and looting.
The heavily armed “Black Shirt” militants, apparently connected to
the UDD and operating in tandem with it, were responsible for deadly attacks on
soldiers, police, and civilians.

During and after the protests, the government adopted
various measures that seriously infringed on fundamental human rights. These
included holding suspects without charge for up to 30 days in unofficial places
of detention, arbitrary arrests and detentions of UDD supporters, mistreatment
of detainees, and broad censorship of critical media and websites.

Contentious key issues, such as the role of the monarchy and
military in Thai politics and society, a dysfunctional and corrupt political
system, the failure to hold powerful individuals across the political spectrum
accountable for human rights abuses, high-level corruption, widespread economic
disparities, and a deep rural-urban divide were key catalysts for the protests.
These have yet to be addressed in any meaningful way. Moreover, while several
protest leaders and many UDD rank-and-file have been charged with serious
criminal offenses and are awaiting prosecution, government forces implicated in
abuses continue to enjoy impunity, sending Thais the message that the scales of
justice are imbalanced, if not entirely broken. It is critical for the
government to ensure impartial and transparent government investigations that
lead to criminal prosecutions against those on all sides responsible for abuses,
including those who ordered the unlawful use of force or incited violence.

Impunity and human rights abuses have long been a feature of
Thailand’s political system and culture. While substantial progress was
made after the 1992 attacks by the military on protesters, the human rights
situation degraded after Thaksin Shinawatra, a telecommunications billionaire, became
prime minister in 2001. Thaksin did many positive things for Thailand,
including embarking on an ambitious village-level economic development and
social services program. His populist reforms were aimed at winning the loyalty
of the marginalized rural and urban poor. But his rule was marred by
allegations of corruption, cronyism, increased restrictions on media, and severe
human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killing of approximately 2,800
drug suspects as part of his “War on Drugs” and a brutal
counterinsurgency campaign against the ethnic Malay Muslim insurgency in
southern Thailand.

Thaksin’s detractors tended to view his government as either
an effort to run roughshod over democratic institutions and human rights, or a
challenge to the traditionalist and royalist political establishment. In 2006,
mass protests erupted in Bangkok led by the People’s Alliance for
Democracy (PAD), or the “Yellow Shirts,” which claimed to defend
the monarchy. Military leaders staged a coup in September 2006, which Human
Rights Watch denounced, and removed Thaksin and his government from power. The
coup ushered in a period of serious political instability in which Thailand has
faced violent political stand-offs between the “Yellow Shirt” PAD, which
opposes a political resolution allowing Thaksin to return to power, and the
pro-Thaksin “Red Shirt” UDD.

Thaksin’s removal from office did not end his
involvement in Thai politics. From exile, he has supported proxies to create a series
of political parties which enjoyed enough popular support to win an election in
December 2007. However, the governments of prime ministers Samak Sundaravej and
Somchai Wongsawat, which Thaksin backed, were removed from power by the Constitutional
Court on arguably legally valid but politically motivated grounds. This led to
street protests that reached their peak between March and May 2010, beginning
on March 12 with the UDD’s “Million Man March” on Bangkok.

Descent into Chaos

After months of careful preparations at hundreds of informal
“Red Shirt schools” nationwide, an estimated 120,000 protesters descended
on the capital from UDD rural strongholds to call for new elections and the
effective end of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s government. Abhisit
had been installed in December 2008 with the strong support of the military and
the Privy Council.

After a month of largely peaceful rallies, the protests took
a violent turn on April 7 when UDD leader Arisman Pongruangrong led protesters in
storming the Parliament building while the Parliament was in session, forcing
the deputy prime minister and other ministers to flee the site. The government
responded by declaring a state of emergency. Using powers put into place by
Thaksin, it created a civilian-military crisis center empowered to impose
curfews, ban public gatherings, detain suspects without charge, and censor the media.

On April 9, the UDD launched a march to restore the satellite
signal for its television network, the People’s Channel. Protesters overpowered
and seized the weapons of soldiers who attempted to hold them back from the
Thaicom satellite station, north of Bangkok, then negotiated an agreement to
restore the signal and return the weapons. Sixteen protesters and five soldiers
were injured in the clash.

On April 10, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban ordered
the army to reclaim the UDD sites at Phan Fa bridge and in Ratchaprasong
district, where protesters had set up a camp, paralyzing the capital’s
central business district. An initial failed attempt to retake the bridge, which
included gunfire by security forces, wounded some 135 persons, including at
least 19 soldiers and three police officers. Meanwhile in Ratchaprasong, UDD protesters
attacked police officials who tried to serve arrest warrants on their leaders there.

While the military denied that soldiers had used live
ammunition, eyewitness accounts, video footage, and forensic evidence from the
scene that Human Rights Watch has examined shows that some soldiers fired live
ammunition at protesters.

As night fell, renewed clashes erupted when the army
attempted to move in on the Phan Fa camp and were confronted by well-armed and organized
groups of armed militants affiliated with the UDD. Known as the “Black
Shirts,” they fired M16 and AK-47 assault rifles at soldiers, and used M79
grenade launchers and M67 hand grenades at the Khok Wua junction and at the
Democracy Monument, devastating army troops in the process. The army
unit’s commanding officer, Col. Romklao Thuwatham, was among the first to
be killed, apparently in a targeted M79 grenade attack. Many senior officers
were wounded. Panicked and leaderless, the troops withdrew into backstreets,
often firing directly at UDD protesters massed before them. The result was
Bangkok’s deadliest violence in decades, which left 26 people dead,
including five soldiers, and more than 860 wounded.

A foreign photojournalist was behind army lines in Din So
Road when the soldiers were attacked by Black Shirts with grenades and gunfire.
He told Human Rights Watch:

[T]hey [the soldiers] got hit by a grenade. They fell back
and had injured with them, so to give cover to their wounded they returned
fire. The Black Shirts were ahead of them, attacking….I could see their
fire incoming at us….The Black Shirts didn’t come to try and take
territory—they shoot and then they leave; they hit [the soldiers] and
retreat.

A period of relative calm and negotiations between the
government and UDD followed. However, violence continued to flare. On April 22,
for example, five M79-launched grenades landed in a pro-government Yellow Shirt
crowd, killing a woman and wounding at least 78. On April 24 and 29, UDD
security guards and protesters armed with sharpened bamboo sticks stormed
Chulalongkorn Hospital in search for soldiers.

Live-Fire Zones and the Final
Assault

In early May, the government and UDD almost reached an
agreement to halt the protests and hold elections for a new government.
However, UDD hardliners led by Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol, claiming to
represent Thaksin’s interests, blocked the deal with more demands. They
also threatened to remove moderate UDD leaders, whom they said were
collaborating with the government. Amid
escalating tensions, the UDD reinforced its Ratchaprasong camp in
Bangkok’s commercial district with barricades made of tires and sharp
bamboo sticks.

On May 12, Prime Minister Abhisit announced that negotiations
had failed and warned that the protest camp would be dispersed imminently. On
the evening of May 13, a sniper shot Khattiya in the head as he was being
interviewed by a New York Times reporter near the UDD barricade at
Saladaeng junction. Later that night, incensed armed Black Shirts began
confronting security forces near the King Rama IV statue in Lumphini Park,
firing assault weapons. A photographer described the scene:

They [Black Shirts] started breaking as many lights in the
area as they could to make the area darker so snipers couldn’t fire at
them. Suddenly, I heard a lot of explosions and gunfire for about 20 minutes.

He said Black Shirts took garbage bags containing AK-47
assault rifles hidden behind tents behind the Rama VI statue and started
shooting at security forces positioned at the Chulalongkorn Hospital and other
buildings, who returned fire.

The assassination of Khattiya, who died from his wounds on
May 17, led to rapidly escalating violence on both sides. Starting on May 14,
groups comprised mostly of men and urban youth fought openly with security
forces surrounding the Ratchaprasong camp, using flaming tires, petrol bombs,
slingshot-fired projectiles, and powerful home-made explosives. On numerous
occasions, the Red Shirt protesters were joined by better-armed and fast-moving
Black Shirt militants armed with AK-47 and HK-33 rifles and M79 grenade
launchers.

On May 14, the government set out new rules of engagement
for security forces, allowing them to use live fire under specific
circumstances. These included using warning shots for self-defense, and when
troops had clear visual site of “terrorists,” a dangerously vague
term. In practice, the security forces began deploying snipers to shoot anyone
who tried to enter “no-go” zones between the UDD and security force
barricades, or who threw projectiles towards soldiers. On many occasions,
security forces appear to have randomly shot into crowds of UDD supporters who
posed no threat to them, often with lethal consequences.

While Thai authorities have not released comprehensive
forensic analyses of the wounds sustained by those killed between May 14 and
May 18, incidents reviewed by Human Rights Watch indicate that several unarmed
protesters were killed with single shots to the head, suggesting use of snipers
and high-powered scopes. For example, a photographer who was filming a wounded
protester in Lumphini Park on the morning of May 14 and found himself under
heavy gunfire said: “I didn’t see any armed people getting shot.
What you had were snipers with scopes taking people out with headshots, people
who at most had a slingshot.”

On May 19, UDD leadership–claiming it was acting to
save protesters’ lives—unexpectedly surrendered during an army
operation to retake areas around the Ratchaprasong camp. Security
forces fired directly into the UDD barricades with live ammunition, casing
deaths and injuries among protesters, medic volunteers, and bystanders. Small
groups of armed militants fired assault weapons and grenades at advancing
soldiers, killing at least one soldier and wounding a Canadian journalist, but
quickly abandoned the battle.

At the same time, UDD supporters began an apparently coordinated
campaign of arson attacks throughout Bangkok. For months, UDD leaders had urged
followers to turn the city into “a sea of fire” if the army tried to
disperse the protest camps. Apparently following such directives, pro-UDD
elements targeted buildings, banks, stores, and small businesses linked to the
government or anti-Thaksin associates, including the Thai Stock Exchange,
Central World shopping complex (one of the biggest in Asia), and the Maleenont
Tower Complex housing Channel 3 Television. The attacks caused billions of
dollars in damage.

Several thousand UDD demonstrators sought sanctuary in the
compound of a Buddhist temple, Wat Pathum Wanaram, which had been declared a
safe zone several days earlier in an agreement between the government and UDD
leaders. Fresh violence led to the deaths of six people in or near the
compound. The army, which denied any responsibility for the killings inside the
temple, suggested the six fatalities were due to an internal Red Shirt dispute.
A Human Rights Watch investigation, based on eyewitness accounts and forensic
evidence, found that soldiers fatally shot at least two people outside the
temple entrance as they fled, while soldiers on the elevated train tracks shot
and wounded others (at least one fatally) inside the temple compound. Narongsak
Singmae, a UDD protester who was shot and wounded inside the temple said:

[O]ur leaders told us that temple was a safe zone. I
brought along my wife and my son…. Around 6 p.m. I heard gunshots coming
from in front of the temple and I saw people running toward me … Before I
could do anything, I was shot in my left leg and in my chest. The bullet went
through my leg. But luckily, the bullet that hit my chest was stopped by a coin
in my bag. Soldiers shot wildly at anyone that moved. I saw another two men
shot by soldiers as they tried to come out from their hiding places and run for
safety.

According to witnesses, medic volunteers who were tending
the wounded inside the temple compound were amongst those killed. These
included a nurse who was shot while tending to a wounded man near the nursing
station at the front of the temple, and 22-year-old man who was fatally shot in
the head and body inside the medical tent after providing first aid to the nurse.
Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that soldiers did not allow medics and
ambulances to rescue wounded protesters, possibly causing additional deaths:

I believed many people died because medics and ambulances
were not allowed to enter Wat Pathum until almost midnight. I saw a young man
suffer from gunshot wounds for about 45 minutes before he died. Some of us
tried to crawl out from our hiding places to help the wounded and retrieve dead
bodies, but we were shot at by soldiers.

The May violence was not limited to Bangkok. After the UDD
started the “Million Man March” in Bangkok on March 12, 2010,
parallel rallies took place in northern and northeastern Thailand, political
strongholds of Thaksin. These were connected to the main protest stages in Bangkok
via the broadcast of the People’s Channel satellite TV, community radio
stations, and a live online feed. Leaders told these participants of parallel
rallies to prepare to possibly besiege provincial halls if the government used
violence to disperse UDD protests in Bangkok. On May 19, in response to events
in the capital, UDD supporters in Khon Kaen, Ubon Ratchathani, Udorn Thani, and
Mukdahan provinces rioted and burned government buildings. In several
instances, security forces opened fire on the protesters, killing at least
three, and wounding dozens more.

To combat the escalating violence, the government adopted
various measures that seriously infringed fundamental human rights. For
example, the Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situation in
Bangkok and other provinces went into effect on April 7, 2010, allowing the
government to hold suspects without charge for up to 30 days in unofficial
places of detention. Officials who implemented the decree effectively received
immunity from prosecution.

The decree also created the Center for the Resolution of
Emergency Situations (CRES), an ad hoc body of civilians and military officers,
which questioned, arrested, and detained UDD leaders, protesters, and accused
sympathizers. The CRES also summoned hundreds of politicians, former officials,
businessmen, activists, academics, and radio operators for interrogation; froze
individual and corporate bank accounts; and detained some people in
military-controlled facilities. Human Rights Watch found many UDD detainees
experienced torture and forcible interrogations, arbitrary arrest and
detention, and overcrowded detention facilities.

The state of emergency was finally lifted on December 22. This
positive development was, however, undermined by a continuing government crackdown
on freedom of expression and media freedom. Emergency powers were used against
several media outlets considered to be closely aligned with the UDD, including more
than 1,000 websites, a satellite television station, online television
channels, publications, and more than 40 community radio stations. Most banned
media remain closed at this writing. In addition, Thai authorities used the
Computer Crimes Act and the charge of lese majeste, or insulting the
monarchy, to persecute dissidents and censor online information and opinions.

As a means to reconciliation, Prime Minister Abhisit
endorsed an impartial investigation into the violence committed by all sides.
However, without the necessary military cooperation, the Parliamentary inquiry
commissions, the National Human Rights Commission, and the Independent
Fact-Finding Commission for Reconciliation have all been unable to obtain
complete information about security forces’ deployment plans and
operations, autopsy reports, witness testimony, photos, or video footage from
the CRES.

Thailand’s Obligations
under International Law

Thailand is a party to the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR), which obligates the government to uphold and take
measures to ensure the realization of basic rights. On April 10, 2010, Thailand
invoked article 4 of the ICCPR to formally suspend specific treaty obligations.[1]
These were the right to freedom of movement (article 12), freedom of expression
and the press (article 19), and peaceful assembly (article 21) in the areas
under Emergency Decree. The government did not suspend the prohibition on
arbitrary arrest and detention (article 9), nor the right to a fair trial
(article 14).

According to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which
monitors state compliance with the ICCPR, any measures that limit rights must
reflect the duration, geographical coverage, and scope of the state of
emergency and be proportional to the threat.[2] Further, certain
fundamental provisions of the ICCPR such as the right to life and freedom from
torture or ill-treatment, and freedom of thought, may in no circumstances be
restricted.[3]
Arbitrary deprivations of liberty or deviations from the fundamental principles
of a fair trial, including the presumption of innocence, are also not
permitted.[4]

Key Recommendations

To the Government of Thailand

Immediately conduct an impartial,
transparent, and independent inquiry into the violence of April-May 2010 and
ensure all perpetrators of serious human rights abuses are brought to justice
regardless of their status and political affiliation.

Ensure the Thai army and other military
branches, Thai police, and other government agencies fully cooperate with all
information requests from the Ministry of Justice’s Department of Special
Investigation, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, the Truth for
Reconciliation Commission of Thailand, and other official inquiries, including
those conducted by parliamentary commissions.

Immediately make public the names,
identifying information, place of origin and other specific information of all
persons who have been detained for an offense under the Emergency Decree since
April 7, 2010. Ensure that all persons detained by the police and other
security forces are held at recognized places of detention and are not
subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
Immediately make detainees’ whereabouts known to family and legal
counsel, allow regular contact with family, and unhindered access to legal
counsel of the detainee's choice.

Provide prompt, fair, and adequate
compensation for the victims, and family members of the victims of human rights
violations and the misuse of force by state officials. Provide assistance to
families who suffered injury or property loss as a result of the demonstrations
and the government crackdown.

Immediately end all restrictions on media that
violate the right to freedom of expression, particularly sweeping censorship of
UDD-affiliated media outlets, com­munity radio stations, and websites.

Drop
all criminal charges filed under the Computer Crimes Act and Penal Code for
peaceful expression. End arbitrary use of lese majeste charges to intimidate
and prosecute government critics and dissidents.

To
Leaders of the UDD, PAD, and Other Opposition Political Groups and Political
Parties

Take all necessary measures, including
frequent public statements, to ensure that all members and supporters do not
engage, directly or indirectly, in violent activities on behalf of the group.

Continually monitor, identify, and disband
any armed elements within the group.

Report
to the authorities any group members who plan violence or unlawfully obtain or
use arms.

Cooperate and participate fully with criminal
investigations, and investigations by the National Human
Rights Commission and the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand into human
rights violations and violence.

II.
Methodology

This report is based on a
series of visits by Human Rights Watch to Bangkok and other provinces in
Thailand’s central and northeastern regions between June 2010 and April
2011.

Victims and eyewitnesses were
interviewed, as well as those who directly took part in various stages of the protests
and violence on both pro-government and anti-government sides. We also spoke to
academics, journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders, parliamentarians, and
government officials, including security personnel and police. Reports from the
Thai authorities and from Thai and international media were also used in our
research. Human Rights Watch interviewed a total of 94 persons.

Our research was,
nevertheless, limited by the enforcement of the Emergency Decree by the
government. Operating under the state of emergency, government officials and
security personnel were barred from providing complete information about their
operations. Meanwhile, information produced by groups affiliated with the UDD
was censored. Even after the lifting of the Emergency Decree in December 2010,
many people in anti-government groups remain extremely fearful for their
safety.

To protect the safety of our
sources, in many cases Human Rights Watch has withheld the full names of
interviewees or other information that might identify them, such as exact
locations and specific dates of interviews.

III. Background

Since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand’s
trajectory toward democratization has often been disrupted by non-elected forces
that exercise veto power over the popularly elected representatives, and sometimes
maneuver to drive those elected representatives from office. In the period from
1932 until today, there have been 18 coups, 23 military governments, and 9 military-dominated
governments. (See the Appendix for a short timeline of modern Thai political
history.)

The election of Thaksin Shinawatra, a telecommunications
billionaire, as prime minister in 2001 was a watershed in Thai history. The
election was the first under the “People’s Constitution” of
1997, which provided for the direct election of both houses of the legislature
and explicitly incorporated human rights protections.[5]

Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party won on a populist
platform promising broad reforms to the country’s marginalized poor. Having
won 248 Parliamentary seats (more than any party in previous elections), the
party needed only three more seats to form a government. Nonetheless, Thaksin
opted for a broad coalition with Chart Thai Party and New Aspiration Party,
while absorbing the smaller Seritham Party.[6] Thaksin’s
political strength became more evident with his legal victory against serious
corruption allegations related to asset concealment, when the Constitutional
Council by an 8-7 decision cleared him of corruption charges in August 2001.[7]

In 2005 Thaksin was reelected in a landslide. Thai Rak Thai
controlled 75 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives, and Thaksin’s
government instituted many populist reforms that won him the loyalty of many of
the rural and urban poor, including an effective universal healthcare program,
micro-credit schemes to rural villages, ua arthorn (social generosity)
programs to provide subsidized housing and other services, education
scholarships and low-cost loans for disadvantaged students, and local
innovation and micro-industry through the One Tambon One Project (OTOP) scheme.

Thaksin personally marketed these programs and consciously
fostered his public persona as a “can do” CEO whose leadership style
emphasized personal commitment and the ability to get things done. Although
Thaksin’s reforms were extremely popular in poor rural areas, some
royalists accused Thaksin of competing with the extensive rural development
programs of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej and attempting to usurp
royal prerogatives.

At the same time, Thaksin set out to consolidate his hold on
power. Thai Rak Thai dominated Parliament by merging with smaller parties and co-opting
members of the upper house, the Senate, whose members were constitutionally
required to be independent of parties. Independent
bodies under the 1997 Constitution were either sidelined or stacked with
Thaksin’s allies to such a degree they could not effectively and
impartially perform their duties.

Against the backdrop of failing checks and balances under
the 1997 Constitution, Thaksin implemented policies that resulted in serious
and widespread human rights violations.

Among the most egregious of these was the “War on
Drugs,” which officially launched in February 2003. Openly encouraged by
the Thaksin administration, the anti-drug campaign soon deteriorated into a
policy of extrajudicial killings of drug suspects by the police. In the first
three months of the campaign, more than 2,800 drug suspects died in extrajudicial
killings.[8]
Thaksin and other government officials made thinly veiled threats that drug
dealers would be killed. Blacklists were created. No one was held accountable.[9]

Thaksin took a similar approach to quell the ethnic Malay
Muslim insurgency in the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat.
Under his rule, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and other
serious human rights violations in the provinces rose sharply. For example, on
April 28, 2004, security forces killed 32 suspected insurgents in a shootout at
Pattani’s Krue Sae mosque, which they had occupied, while on October 25,
security forces were responsible for suffocation of at least 84 protesters in
Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district, whom they piled into the back of trucks to
transport to a nearby army base.[10]

Government-sponsored inquiries concluded that senior army
commanders and security personnel were responsible for deaths in both incidents
but no one was ever prosecuted.

Abusive counterinsurgency operations in the southern border
provinces were institutionalized when Thaksin introduced the draconian
Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situation
("Emergency Decree") in 2005. This effectively provides Thai security
forces with legal immunity and broad powers to detain individuals for up to 30
days without charge in unofficial places of detention.

The government’s lack of respect for human rights left
Thailand's once-thriving human rights community vulnerable. More than 20 human
rights defenders were killed across the country while Thaksin was in power. In
one of the most alarming incidents, Somchai Neelapaijit, a prominent human
rights lawyer, was abducted in Bangkok by police officers in March 2004. His
body has never been found, but Thaksin publicly stated on January 13, 2009
that, “I know Somchai is dead...” and that the case “involves
government officials.”[11]
Five police officers were arrested and charged with the assault that preceded
the “disappearance” and presumed murder. On January 12, 2006, the
Central Criminal Court sentenced one officer to three years in jail for physically
assaulting Somchai; the rest were acquitted.[12]

Thaksin showed little tolerance for critics, clamping down
on the right to freedom of assembly, with regular reports of excessive use of
force by police against protesters. The Thai Journalists Association (TJA) and
the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association (TBJA) documented numerous cases of Thaksin
taking direct and indirect measures via government and private channels to mute
Thailand's once-vibrant media. Under government pressure, more than 20 news
editors and journalists at public and private news outlets were dismissed, transferred,
or had their work interfered with. The government also reined in critical media
by withdrawing operating licenses and advertisements, or threatening to do so.
Thaksin’s cohorts in the Anti-Money Laundering Office harassed prominent
journalists and media freedom advocates with criminal defamation actions and
abusive investigations.

Thaksin also strained
relations with the powerful military, which he sidelined in favor of the police
that he could control more easily through appointments and favors. Capitalizing
on his political popularity and high approval ratings, Thaksin, a former police
officer, tried to put the military under firmer civilian control by shuffling senior
military commanders to favor those he saw as loyal. This alienated many
top-level officers and bureaucrats who resented being passed over for
promotions or saw chances for career advancement undermined. Thaksin also
dismissed the traditional role of the Privy Council president, Gen. Prem
Tinsulanonda, in recommending and reviewing the military reshuffle lists prior
to presenting them to the King for endorsement, and replaced the palace’s
patronage network with his associates.[13]

The
People’s Alliance for Democracy and Anti-Thaksin Movement

By early 2006, growing discontent among many social sectors—including
intellectuals, NGOs, business elites, the upper-middle class, civil servants,
employees of state-owned enterprises, and opposition political parties
(particularly the Democrat Party, which could not compete with Thaksin
geographically or financially)—had coalesced into an organized protest
movement.

The anti-Thaksin campaign quickly evolved from a movement that
confronted authoritarian rule and abuse of power into an ultra-conservative and
ultra-nationalist movement. Thaksin’s critics chose to ground their calls
for his removal in the imperative to protect the King from Thaksin’s
alleged aspiration to transform Thailand into a republic. Thaksin was accused of
the crime of lese majeste (an affront to the dignity of the monarch), an
allegation that is taken extremely seriously in Thailand, as part of a campaign
spearheaded by Sondhi Limthongkul, a former Thaksin ally and media mogul.[14]

Sondhi began to host public talks that drew large
anti-Thaksin crowds. In May 2006, Sondhi’s Manager Daily newspaper
published the “Finland Declaration”—a plan that it alleged Thaksin
and senior members of his Thai Rak Thai Party had formulated in Finland in 1999
to institute single party rule, overthrow the monarchy, and establish a
republic.[15]

In 2006, popular disapproval of Thaksin flared with the sale
of his Shin Corporation. After becoming prime minister, Thaksin had retained a
fortune estimated at US$2.3 billion. As required under Thai law, he had
divested his interests in Shin Corp. and other companies before entering
politics and transferred his Shin Corp. shares to his two eldest children,
although many suspected he still made all key decisions regarding his
family’s holdings. On January 23, 2006, Thaksin’s children sold
their 49.6 percent stake in the company to Temasek Holdings, the Singaporean
government’s sovereign fund. The deal became a major political scandal.
Critics accused Thaksin of selling off critical national assets to a foreign country
because Shin Corp. controlled Thailand’s biggest mobile telephone network
and satellite services. It was also alleged that Thaksin’s children had used
a loophole in Thailand’s tax code by making the sale through offshore
accounts to avoid paying taxes.[16]

On February 8, the People’s Alliance for Democracy
(PAD) was forged. Popularly known as the “Yellow Shirts”—the birth
color of King Bhumiphol Adulyadej and a powerful sign of support for the
monarchy—the PAD submitted a petition asking King Bhumiphol to use his
constitutional powers to remove Thaksin and appoint his own prime minister.[17]
Led by some of the most conservative elements of Thai society, the PAD quickly
grew, winning support from many who felt marginalized or threatened by Thaksin,
including powerful royalists and military elements, members of the democracy
and human rights movement, labor unionists from state-owned enterprises, and
business leaders.[18]

The growing opposition led Thaksin to dissolve Parliament
and call an election for April 2, 2006. To delegitimize the election which
Thaksin’s party was poised to win, the PAD called on the Democrat Party
and other key opposition parties to boycott the election. The Thai Rak Thai
Party won 16.42 million votes (or 56.45 percent). The PAD and the Democrat
Party alleged election irregularities, and charged the Election Commission of
Thailand (ECT) controlled by Thaksin’s allies, with violating election
rules.[19]
Two days after the election and after meeting with King Bhumiphol, Thaksin
announced he was resigning as prime minister out of respect for the King, but that
he would stay on as caretaker prime minister.[20]

On April 26, 2006, King Bhumibol spoke publicly about
“one-party elections” that were “undemocratic” and
effectively called on Thaksin to resign.[21]

On May 8, 2006, the Constitutional Court annulled the April
election results and ordered a new election, scheduled for October 2006. The
judges then publicly called for the election commissioners to resign. When they
refused, the Criminal Court tried and sentenced them to four years in prison on
charges of malfeasance, and stripped them of their voting rights and their
posts. The imprisonment of the election commissioners created a vacuum in electoral
preparation, making it impossible for Thaksin to hold a new election.

Thaksin also faced strong opposition from Prem, the head of
the Privy Council, whose significant influence over the military and open
criticisms of his government added significant momentum to the anti-Thaksin
campaign and fed widespread rumors of an imminent coup.[22]
On June 29, Thaksin accused “extra-constitutional forces” of
plotting to overthrow him, a thinly veiled reference to Prem, who had visited
key military units with senior commanders. On July 14, Prem reminded military
officers their loyalty should rest with King Bhumiphol and not the elected
government.[23]

September
2006 Coup

On September 19, 2006, just weeks before rescheduled parliamentary
elections and while Thaksin was in New York City for United Nations General
Assembly meetings, the military staged a coup, revoked the 1997 Constitution,
and removed Thaksin from power.

Led by army commander-in-chief, Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin,
the coup resulted in a military junta—the Administrative Reform Council
under the Democratic System with the King as Head of State. The council’s
official English title was later changed to the Council for Democratic Reform
(CDR) to avoid “misunderstanding” about the monarchy’s role
in the removal of an elected government.[24]

The CDR justified the coup by saying that Thaksin’s
administration had created “problems of disunity and the erosion of
solidarity among the Thai people;” that most Thais were skeptical of
Thaksin’s government due to “signs of rampant corruption and
malfeasance;” and independent agencies had been “interfered
with” leading to “problems and obstacles to the conduct of
political activities.”[25]

Martial law was imposed throughout Thailand, and the CDR
assumed full control over the military and police forces. The CDR abrogated the
1997 Constitution and abolished the Senate, House of Representatives, Council
of Ministers, and the Constitutional Court. The CDR issued orders (using
martial law powers) to censor media and ban protests and political activities.[26]
Thaksin’s close aides, such as Natural Resources and Environment Minister
Yongyuth Tiyapairat, Prime Minister's Office Minister Newin Chidchob, Deputy
Prime Minister Pol. Gen. Chidchai Wannasathit, and Secretary-General of the
Prime Minister Prommin Lertsuridej, were detained. The PAD announced its goals
had been achieved.[27]

On October 1, 2006, the newly renamed Council for National
Security (CNS) introduced the Interim Constitution and designated Gen. Surayud
Chulanont, a former army commander-in-chief and privy councilor, prime
minister. The Interim Constitution deemed all CDR announcements and orders after
the coup to be “legitimate and in accordance with the
Constitution.” The Interim Constitution also granted CDR leaders and those
acting with them “immunity from all responsibility and conviction.”
The Interim Constitution also called for a new constitution. If voters failed
to approve the draft, the CNS reserved the right to adopt and amend
Thailand’s previous constitutions.[28] The
junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly also passed the Referendum Act,
imposing severe penalties for publicly expressing opposition to the draft constitution.

On August 10, 2007, under domestic and international
pressure to return to constitutional and civilian rule, the draft Constitution
was approved by 59.3 percent of the voters in a referendum.[29] It
was formally promulgated five days later amid criticism that it was “an
attempt to undermine the capacity of the political parties and elected leaders
to challenge Thailand’s conservative forces in the future.”[30]

The CDR adopted a provision banning the full executive
committee of any dissolved political party from participating in politics for a
five-year period, even if the alleged conduct occurred prior to the coup.[31]
The provision was then used to dismantle Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party on
May 30, based upon a finding the party had bribed smaller parties to
participate in the April 2006 election. In addition to dissolving the party,
the nine-member Constitutional Tribunal banned 111 Thai Rak Thai Party
executives from politics for five years.[32] Similar measures
were not taken against senior members of pro-PAD parties who participated in
the widespread practice of vote buying in their campaigns.

Most of the politicians associated with the banned Thai Rak
Thai Party joined the new Thaksin-backed People’s Power Party (PPP),
which won a majority of the votes in the December 2007 election, returning
Thaksin loyalists to power. In a highly controversial move, the PPP chose former
Bangkok governor Samak Sundaravej as prime minister. Widely seen as
Thaksin’s surrogate, Samak had been accused of mobilizing right-wing
militia elements during the October 7, 1976 massacre of student activists at
Thammasat University.

The 2008 Yellow Shirt Protests

In February 2008, Thaksin returned to Thailand from exile. In
May, tens of thousands of PAD Yellow Shirts took to the streets of Bangkok,
enraged by what they saw as Samak’s role as Thaksin’s proxy and
governmental efforts to amend the constitution to pardon Thaksin.[33]
The protests soon spread to other provinces.

Pro-government groups responded by violently attacking at
least a dozen PAD rallies across Thailand between May and July 2008, often with
police looking on. In the most serious incident, on July 24, a group of
approximately 1,000 members of the Khon Rak Udorn(“Lovers of
Udorn”) group based in Udorn Thani province, led by radio host Kwanchai
Praipana,[34]
of local FM radio station 97.5, and Uthai Saenkaew, the brother of
then-Agriculture Minister Theerachai Saenkaew, attacked a peaceful rally of about
200 PAD members at the Nong Prajak public park with swords, axes, knives, iron
clubs, and slingshots. FM radio 97.5, reportedly urged pro-government
supporters to violently attack the PAD rally. Around 500 police and district
defense volunteers stood by without attempting to arrest the attackers or stop
the violence, which critically injured 13 PAD members. Human Rights Watch
documented similar violence, often led by persons associated with the pro-Thaksin
PPP, in Sakol Nakhorn, Chiang Mai, Sri Saket, Chiang Rai, Mahasakham, and
Buriram provinces.[35]

In an apparent attempt to escape impending court verdicts on
conflict-of-interest and corruption charges, Thaksin left Thailand in August
2008 to seek refuge in England, where he remained at least until October 2008.
In October 2008, the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of
Political Positions sentenced him in absentia to two years in prison on
conflict of interest charges.[36]
Thaksin has not to date returned to Thailand.[37]

On August 26, 2008, PAD protesters stormed and occupied the
pro-government National Broadcasting Services of Thailand (NBT) television
station in Bangkok. PAD then took over Government House, the seat of
government, compelling Prime Minister Samak and his staff to flee their offices.
On August 29, clashes broke out between PAD protesters and riot police seeking
to disperse them from several protests sites; pro-PAD railway workers went on
strike; and PAD supporters briefly shut down the airports of the southern
provinces, including Hat Yai, Phuket, and Krabi.

On September 1, a large group of UDD Red Shirts tried to
storm the PAD protest camp at Makhawan bridge in Bangkok, sparking a street
battle between PAD and UDD supporters that left one UDD member dead and more
than 40 wounded. Samak declared a State of Emergency, which was revoked on September
14.

On September 9, the Constitutional Court found that Samak
had breached constitutional provisions against conflict of interest by cabinet
members by hosting and receiving payment for a televised cooking show,
“Tasting and Grumbling,” while he was prime minister.[38]
The Constitutional Court dismissed Samak as prime minister. On September 17, Parliament
elected Deputy Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother-in-law,
as the new prime minister.

In the first week of October, the police arrested PAD leaders
Chaiwat Sinsuwong and Chamlong Srimuang, and charged them with treason,
insurrection, and other serious crimes. Early on the morning of October 7, PAD
protesters mobilized to block Somchai Wongsawat from delivering his policy
speech to the Parliament, accusing him of being a puppet of Thaksin. To clear
the area, police riot units and border patrol police units used tear gas and
rubber bullets, in some cases firing teargas canisters at close range directly
at the protesters. PAD protesters shot at the police with guns and slingshots,
threw bricks and metal pipes, tried to run over police officers with a pickup
truck, and stabbed police officers with flag poles. The clashes lasted the
entire day.

According to the Public Health Ministry, two PAD supporters
were killed and 443 injured, including four who required limb amputations.
About 20 police officers were also injured. The horrific blast injuries
suffered by some protesters prompted an investigation by the National Human
Rights Commission, which concluded on October 13 that Chinese-made teargas
canisters with excessive explosive power may have caused the deaths and severe
injuries.On October 13, Queen Sirikit attended the funeral of
Angkhana Radappanyawutt, a 28-year-old PAD protester, praising the sacrifice
she had made to defend the monarchy.[39]

On November 25, two days after declaring its “Final
War” campaign, the PAD carried out “Operation Hiroshima,”
occupying and shutting down Bangkok’s main Suvarnabhumi airport when
Prime Minister Somchai was due to land. The next day PAD members also shut down
Bangkok’s second airport, Don Muang, to prevent international flights
from being rerouted there. Protesters forcibly ejected police officers at Don
Muang airport seeking to monitor the protests. The government imposed a state
of emergency and called on the military to restore order. The military refused
to comply. Instead, the army commander-in-chief, Gen. Anupong Paochinda,
flanked by the heads of the Navy, Air Force, and Police, publicly called on the
government to resign in an interview broadcast live on national television.[40]
Government attempts to evict PAD demonstrators from the airports were
unsuccessful.

On November 26, several explosions occurred at Don Muang
airport, injuring some protesters. Responsibility for the blasts remains
unclear. On the same day, pro-government supporters of the Chiang Mai Lovers 51
group attacked a pro-PAD radio station in Chiang Mai and killed the owner, the
father of a local PAD leader. A series of grenade attacks began against PAD
protest sites, including an attack on December 1 when a grenade exploded on the
PAD protest stage at Government House, killing one person. Another grenade
attack on December 2 at Don Muang airport killed one and wounded many others.

On December 2, the Constitutional Court found the three main
pro-Thaksin parties guilty of electoral fraud during the December 2007
election. It dissolved the PPP, Chart Thai, and Matchima Thippatai, and barred
the executives of the three parties from participating in politics for five
years. The decision disqualified Prime Minister Somchai from office. The PPP
denounced the ruling as a “judicial coup.” Within hours, PAD leader
Sondhi held a press conference and announced that the PAD was ending its
protest. But he also warned the public that the PAD would return in force if
Thaksin’s nominees returned to power.

As the result of these judicial interventions and with the
backing of the military, on December 15, 2008, the opposition Democrat Party
was able to garner enough Parliamentary votes to elect Abhisit Vejjajiva as prime
minister. Although few expected this government to remain in power for long, it
continues in office at time of writing.

To date, there has been no independent and impartial
investigation into the politically motivated violence that the PAD committed during
its 2008 protests, including unlawful use of force, violence in street battles
after the march to Parliament on October 7, and forcible occupation of
Government House and Bangkok’s airports. Prosecutions of PAD leaders and members
have stalled, as have efforts to seek financial compensation for damages caused
by their protest, amid a growing public perception that the PAD is immune from
legal accountability. At the same time, the National Anti-Corruption Commission
ruled on September 7, 2009 that the national police chief Gen. Patcharawat
Wongsuwan and six other high-ranking police officers should be charged with
criminal offenses and subject to disciplinary action, and that former Prime
Minister Somchai and his deputy Chavalit Yongchaiyudh should face criminal
charges for ordering police to use force to disperse PAD protesters in front of
Parliament on October 7, 2008.

The 2009 Red Shirt Protests

In March 2009, Thaksin in exile accused Prime Minister
Abhisit of being a puppet of the Privy Council president, General Prem. He
called on his followers in the UDD to start a “people’s
revolution” with the slogan khon ammat (“Down with the
Nobles”).

Thaksin’s call, which many PAD supporters construed to
be anti-monarchy, accentuated political divisions in Thailand. On April 7, UDD
protesters attacked Abhisit’s convoy in Pattaya, shattering his car windows.
Clashes between the UDD and pro-government groups spread in Pattaya on April 10
and 11, culminating in UDD protesters storming the hotel where the 14th
summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was due to take
place. The government canceled the summit and declared a State of Emergency in
Pattaya on April 11, and in Bangkok and surrounding provinces on April 12. On
April 12, UDD protesters forced their way into the Interior Ministry in
Bangkok, where Abhisit was meeting with senior officials, and again attacked
his motorcade, dragging people from cars and beating them.

On April 13, street battles erupted in Bangkok when UDD protesters,
who had been blocking main intersections in Din Daeng district with buses and
taxis, attacked approaching soldiers with guns, petrol bombs, slingshots, and
other home-made weapons. UDD protesters also threatened to explode trucks
carrying liquefied petroleum gas near residential areas and hospitals. Soldiers
used teargas and live ammunition to disperse protesters and clear blockades. Some
soldiers fired assault weapons at protesters. Clashes erupted across Bangkok
the next day, when two neighborhood watch group members were killed in a clash
with UDD supporters. At least 123 people were injured, including four soldiers.[41]
Thousands of protesters then retreated to their main camp outside the
Government House on April 14. UDD
leaders finally agreed to disperse in the face of overwhelming government-mobilized
troops. Protesters were allowed to leave and offered bus rides home, while
their leaders surrendered to the police.[42]

UDD leaders accused Abhisit of applying “double
standards” by using security forces against the UDD, but failing to
prosecute PAD protesters for violence and crimes during the protests in 2008.

IV. The
Red Shirt Movement

Red
Shirt schools and preparation for 2010

After UDD protests were dispersed in April 2009, UDD leaders
retreated to their rural strongholds, particularly concerned by the relative
ease with which the army had dispersed the protests, and that the government had
dismissed Thaksin’s claims that protesters had been killed and their
bodies “disappeared” during the dispersal.[43]

In addition to regrouping and analyzing mistakes, UDD
leaders began planning a new round of bigger, better-organized protests for 2010,
which they dubbed a “Million Man March” on Bangkok. To ensure
success, the UDD organized more than 450 “Red Shirt schools” nationwide,
where hundreds of thousands of Red Shirt supporters received an intense one-day
course on its version of how to achieve democratic governance. According to a
local organizer, the program focused on the nature of “real
democracy,” how democracy and Thai politics fell short of this goal, and
how to establish “real democracy” in the future.[44]

The UDD in early 2010 began to organize large rallies,
barely covered by mainstream media, in rural areas in the north and northeast. For
example, a UDD rally on January 31 in Khon Kaen province drew an estimated
100,000 people, and a rally the next day in Ubon Ratchathani province drew a
reported 50,000.[45]
Other events took place in many smaller towns and villages throughout northern
and northeastern Thailand. One foreign journalist investigating reports of Red
Shirt activity in the north attended a 2,000-person fundraising dinner in the
small town of Srang Khom in Udon Thani province, and heard of a similar
3,000-person dinner in a nearby small town the same night, featuring a call-in
from Thaksin.[46]
The UDD also trained hundreds of “Red Shirt Guards” to provide
security at the rallies. Different volunteer groups were formed to feed and
provide other services to the hundreds of thousands of protesters who would
soon travel to the capital.[47]

While most UDD leaders
sought Thaksin’s return to power and some have acted as his proxies, many
mid-ranking and lower level members of the UDD movement had broader aims:
including continuing the populist reforms that Thaksin began, and reforming
Thailand’s political structure. The traditional political establishment,
revolving around the Privy Council, military, judiciary, and allied business
interests, has vigorously opposed these efforts.

Forming
the Red Shirt Guards

Security arrangements surrounding the UDD movement were
complex and organized, aimed at preventing a repeat of 2009, when the military
force dispersed the UDD Songkran protests with relatively little force and
minimal casualties.

In February 2010, Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol, popularly
known as “Seh Daeng” traveled to Dubai to meet Thaksin.[48]
Upon his return, Khattiya said he would focus his energies on “my duty as
head of a unit of security guards to provide protection for the Red Shirt
supporters,” and that “the guards will make sure the Red Shirts
will not be put down by government security forces.”[49]
It is unclear what precise instructions Thaksin gave him.

The composition, command structure, and relationship of the
Red Shirt Guards to the UDD leadership remain unclear. But Human Rights
Watch’s research, including extensive interviews with UDD leaders and
protesters, found that UDD claims to be a peaceful mass mobilization were undermined
by the presence of highly skilled and deadly armed groups, including the
“Black Shirts,” who were responsible for a number of attacks
against soldiers and civilians, but about whom crucial questions of their
command and role remain unanswered.

The most visible element of the UDD security units were the
“Red Shirt Guards”—men usually dressed in black uniforms with
a red handkerchief in a style modeled closely after the uniforms of the Thahan
Phran, the hunter-soldier paramilitary border rangers created to serve in
counter-insurgency warfare against the Communist Party of Thailand in the
1970s. Khattiya had been instrumental in recruiting active and retired members
of Thahan Phran to work as UDD security units, emphasizing their poor
background, in contrast to the elite status of commissioned officers who were
siding with the PAD and the Democrat Party-led government. While on duty, some
Red Guards displayed the insignia of the Thahan Phran and are believed
to have been former or active members of that force. The Red Guards numbered
somewhere around 500 members during the Bangkok protests.[50]

In addition to the Khattiya recruits, most Red Shirt Guards
from broader groups were recruited and commanded by the network of
activist-turned-politician, Ari Krainara.[51] The Red Shirt
Guards underwent rudimentary training in crowd control and other public order
functions and received UDD-issued identity cards.[52]
Their main role at the protest sites was to maintain public order and protect
UDD leaders. Working in rotating shifts, they helped keep the protest camps
well organized.[53]
Most Red Shirt Guards were not visibly armed. On some occasions they helped to
calm violent confrontations and even protected soldiers and police from being attacked
by angry UDD protesters, as was the case when soldiers retreated after being
attacked by heavily armed militias on April 10. Nevertheless, Human Rights
Watch found cases of Red Shirt Guards involved in low-level violence,
especially when manning checkpoints around the UDD rally sites.

The “Black
Shirts”

The UDD’s public deployment of hundreds of security
guards dressed in uniforms resembling those of the paramilitary Thahan Phran
implied a militaristic element to the protest movement. Indeed, many assumed
that Red Shirt security guards were behind the armed violence against
government forces.

However, Human Rights Watch’s investigations found
that the attacks did not originate with Red Shirt Guards, but with a secretive
armed element within the UDD whom protesters and media called the “Black Shirts”
or “Men in Black”—though not all were dressed in black.[54]

Members of these armed groups were captured on photographs
and film armed with various military weapons, including AK-47 and M16 assault
rifles, as well as M79 grenade launchers, during their clashes with government
security forces.[55]

A journalist, who spent several days together with a group
of armed militants at the Ratchaprasong protest camp, described to Human Rights
Watch his experience with the Black Shirts:

The day I met up with the group, they were near Lumphini
Park and the Rama IV [road] junction, living in a tent. I was not allowed to
photograph them. I met about 17 or 18 of them, but they said they were part of
a group of 30. They had more people helping them, helpers and their own medics.
They were all ex-military, and some of them were still on active duty. Some of
them were paratroopers, and at least one was from the Navy. They had AR-15s,
TAR-21s, M16s, AK-47s [military assault rifles], but I didn’t see them
with M79s [grenade launchers]. They told me that their job was to protect the
Red Shirt protesters, but their real job was to terrorize the soldiers.

[T]hese guys were fearless. They operated mostly at night,
but sometimes also during the day. They went out in small teams [to confront
the army].…

They didn’t use walkie-talkies, just mobile phones
and runners [to deliver messages]. I saw no interaction with the Red Shirt
leaders. But these guys were contacted by someone, someone recruited them to
come, I have no idea who. Someone provided them with weapons…. They
rationed their bullets—when they went out they had 30 bullets [each].

They weren’t really “black”
shirts—they were sometimes in green military uniforms and others dressed
like Red Shirt protesters. They didn’t have any relationship with the Red
Guards, and weren’t interested in dealing with the Red Shirt
leaders.… They took their work very seriously. The guys I met, they knew
how to move and shoot. They also had experience handling explosives.… The
Black Shirts didn’t come to try and take territory—they shoot and
then they leave, they hit [the soldiers] and retreat.[56]

A Thai journalist stationed near Bon Kai junction said the
Black Shirt militants he encountered during the May 17-19 clashes were
well-armed, appeared to be trained in military tactics, and seemed to have a
separate command line from the Red Shirt Guards:

From what I saw, the Black Shirt militants and the Red
Shirt protesters were fighting alongside each other in the areas around Bon Kai
junction. But they did not share the same command line. The Red Shirts seemed
to be driven by anger as they saw soldiers moving in and opening fire at the
protesters. They burned tires and used slingshots to shoot metal bolts, rocks,
and fire crackers at soldiers. They also tried to use petrol bombs and homemade
rockets, made of PVC [durable plastic] and metal pipes, to attack soldiers. But
the aim of their rockets was not accurate enough to hit soldier bunkers and
cause any serious damage. Some of the Red Shirts went out on foot and
motorcycles to challenge soldiers to come out from their bunkers and fight
openly. But they had to dash back behind the barricades when soldiers shot them
with rubber bullets and live rounds. This cat-and-mouse game went on all day. I
only saw two of the Red Shirts firing at soldiers with revolver pistols.

The Black Shirts, on the other hand, were well armed. They
attacked soldiers with AK-47 and HK-33 assault rifles, and M79 grenade
launchers. They were also very cautious when they moved around, using smoke as
their cover. They appeared to benefit from the havoc created by the Red Shirts,
which distracted soldiers as well. The Black Shirts did not stay in one spot
for too long. They moved around, took their positions, opened fire, and then
retreated. The way they operated reminded me of those with military training.
Some of the Black Shirts used walkie-talkies, while others use mobile phones,
to communicate with each other. Their operations seemed to be coordinated by a
man who always had sunglasses on. At one point, I heard him giving orders to
the Black Shirts to fire M79 grenades at the bunkers and sniper posts of
soldiers. But when I asked the Black Shirts about that man, they told me I
should not raise that question again if I want to stay behind their line. The
Red Shirts that I talked to said they did not know who that man was either.
Nevertheless, they believed that the Black Shirts were there to protect them
and help them fight more effectively.[57]

V. Bangkok’s
Descent into Chaos

Start
of the “Million Man March”

On March 12, 2010, after months of preparation, the UDD
brought its “Million Man March” to Bangkok. Police estimate that
120,000 UDD protesters converged on the capital from UDD strongholds in the
north, northeast, west, and south of Thailand, unhindered by government-ordered
police and army checkpoints.[58]
Protest organizers put the number at 250,000.

Police and army checkpoints ordered by the government did
little to stop protesters from reaching Bangkok, since officials manning the
checkpoints apparently preferred to avoid confrontations with the incoming
protesters. On March 14, the UDD held its first mass rally at the Phan Fa
Bridge, which became a protest site for a month. UDD leaders demanded Parliament’s
dissolution and new elections.[59]
Thaksin addressed the protest via video from an undisclosed location: “The
people who caused the problems in the country these days are the ruling elite,”
he said.[60]

During the first stages of the UDD protests, the Thai
government pursued a strategy of restraint in the apparent hope the protests
would lose steam, placing limited obstacles in the way of protesters and avoiding
confrontation with security forces. Prime Minister Abhisit said he would meet to
discuss Thailand’s future with the UDD, but that early elections would
not be on the agenda. The government applied the Internal Security Act to limit
the movement of the protesters, allowing the army to set up checkpoints and
declare curfews. But such measures failed to stop the UDD’s fast growing
protest.

After establishing a two kilometer-long Phan Fa Bridge
protest camp adjacent to Government House, the UDD leaders embarked on a series
of events to intensify the impact of their protests. They began driving long
protest convoys of Red Shirt supporters through different parts of Bangkok,
disrupting traffic but also demonstrating the support they enjoyed among
ordinary Bangkok residents, thousands of whom came out to cheer the passing
vehicles.[61]
Adopting a tactic from the earlier PAD protests, they also attempted to disrupt
the functioning of government, descending in thousands on the 11th
Infantry Division army base where Abhisit had attempted to organize an
alternative seat of government away from the surrounded Government House.

On March 16, the UDD mounted a highly symbolic protest at
Government House, pouring liters of blood drawn from UDD supporters on the
building’s gates and walls. A Brahmin priest performed a
“cursing” ceremony against the government.[62] A
similar protest with splashed protesters’ blood was held at the office of
the ruling Democrat Party.[63]

Shadowy violence also began to occur, with an unclaimed
grenade attack on the 1st Infantry Division headquarters (where all
top army commanders have houses) on March 15; four M79-launched grenades
wounded two soldiers.[64]
On March 23, two grenades were fired at the Ministry of Public Health building
on the outskirts of Bangkok, shortly after a cabinet meeting there to discuss
extending the Internal Security Act.[65]

On March 27, further grenade attacks using M79s took place
at the army-run Channel 5 television station, the Customs Department, and the
National Broadcasting Service of Thailand television station, wounding another
five soldiers and a civilian guard.[66]
The same day, UDD leaders Veera Musikapong, Nattawut Saikua, and Jatuporn
Prompan announced that the UDD would march to the temporary government command
at the 11th Infantry Division base to give an ultimatum to Abhisit
regarding the dissolution of Parliament. “Abhisit must talk to us,”
Jatuporn said. “He cannot run away. We will get the government to give
power back to the people. Our goal must succeed tomorrow. If not, we will take
our struggle to another step.”[67]
Thaksin also stated similar demand via a video call to address UDD protesters
at Phan Fa Bridge camp.

At 5 a.m. on March 28, two grenades were fired with M79s
into the 11th Infantry Division base, injuring three soldiers. At
6:30 a.m., UDD leader Kwanchai Praipana began to mobilize protesters to march
to the 11th Infantry Division base. Abhisit gave a televised
statement that the government would not negotiate under pressure. Deputy Prime
Minister Suthep, who was in charge of security affairs, said that martial law
would be enforced at the 11th Infantry Division base if the UDD
breached the compound.

To defuse the growing tension, the prime minister’s
secretary-general, Korbsak Sabhavasu, was sent to negotiate with UDD leaders
for a meeting with Abhisit, but only on the condition that the protesters
retreat from the 11th Infantry Division base. After UDD leaders
agreed to call the protesters back to their Phan Fa Bridge camp, Abhisit led a
government negotiating team in a face-to-face meeting at the King Prajadhipok
Institute with UDD leaders Veera, Jatuporn, and Weng Tochirakarn.

Neither side moved significantly from their established
positions in the negotiations, which took place on March 28 and 29 and were
televised live nationwide. Abhisit maintained that he would dissolve Parliament
in nine months if there was a safe and peaceful environment for a new election,
while UDD leaders demanded that Abhisit dissolve Parliament within 15 days for
the group to end its anti-government activity and allow politicians from the
government side to campaign for a new election.[68]

On April 3, after failing to convince Abhisit to dissolve Parliament,
the UDD changed tactics by moving its supporters into Bangkok’s upscale
central commercial center in the Ratchaprasong district, which it vowed to
occupy until it achieved its political objectives—a tactic reminiscent of
the PAD’s occupation of Bangkok’s airports in 2008 to bring down
the then Thaksin-backed government.

The
April 7-9 Confrontations

On April 7, protests took a violent turn when UDD leader
Arisman Pongruangrong led thousands of protesters from the Phan Fa Bridge and
Ratchaprasong UDD camps to the Parliament building while cabinet ministers and parliamentarians
were meeting. Arisman, a singer and former lawmaker, had led similar efforts to
disrupt government meetings during the April 2009 protests, including the April
11, 2009 storming of the ASEAN summit in Pattaya.[69]

Protesters reached the Parliament building at about 1 p.m.
and forced their way inside by smashing the barred gate with a truck.[70]
Riot police retreated. An observer from Nonviolence Network, a non-governmental
peace advocate group, told Human Rights Watch:

My team arrived at the Parliament around 11 a.m. We found
that the areas in front and on the side of the Parliament were packed with the
protesters, but there was no sign of violence. Some of the protesters even sang
and danced, while some were talking to riot police. We saw UDD leaders Suporn
and Payap giving anti-government speeches. But both leaders said they would not
order the protesters to break into the Parliament. They even said the
protesters would give MPs and their staff safe passage.

But the situation changed around 1 p.m. when Arisman
arrived at the scene. It took less than 10 minutes for Arisman to incite the
protesters and order them to push through the front gate to “hunt
down” [Deputy Prime Minister] Suthep [Thaugsuban].[71]

Arisman called on
protesters to find and detain Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who had
earlier ordered riot police to use teargas against them. The protesters, urged
on by Jarun Hosukal, a pro-Thaksin Puea Thai Party parliamentarian, assaulted a
military police officer who was part of Suthep’s protection team and
seized his weapons, including an M16 assault rifle and a pistol. The protesters
later handed the weapons to police and filed a formal complaint that the armed
guard violated the prohibition on weapons inside Parliament. During the
commotion, Suthep, cabinet ministers, and MPs fled the compound by using a
ladder to climb into a neighboring compound. They later were evacuated by
helicopter.

Following this humiliation, the government later that day
declared a state of emergency in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces. The
Emergency Decree on Public Administration in Emergency Situation
(“Emergency Decree”) established a civilian-military crisis center
known as the Center for the Resolution of Emergency Situation (CRES). Chaired
by Suthep, CRES was empowered to impose curfews, ban public gatherings,
restrict movements, detain suspects without charge, and enforce censorship. The
government immediately began shutting down websites critical of the government
and pulled opposition radio and television stations from the airwaves.

CRES targeted the People’s Channel, broadcast from the
Thaicom satellite stations in Nonthaburi and Pathumthani provinces north of
Bangkok, accusing the channel of disseminating misinformation and inciting
unrest. The broadcasts by the People’s Channel were the primary means of
connecting UDD supporters in other provinces with the main protest stages in
Bangkok, and were the main channel of communication for UDD leaders to mobilize
protesters into actions in and outside Bangkok. Thaksin also used the
People’s Channel to give telecasts or telephone speeches to UDD members
and supporters. CRES dispatched armed soldiers and police to take the
People’s Channel off the air, cutting off news of the Red Shirt protests.

Termination of the broadcast signal of the People’s
Channel inflamed tensions. “We must bring back the people’s media
for democracy … [W]e will not return [to UDD rally camps] until we can
put the People’s Channel back on air,” UDD leader Nathawut Saikua
vowed on April 9.

Around 10 a.m. that day, Nathawut Jatuporn Prompan, Arisman,
and Karun Hosakul led thousands of UDD protesters to the Thaicom station in
Pathumthani province to restore the People’s Channel signal. Soldiers and
police who were guarding the satellite station and had encircled the compound
with razor wire attempted to beat back protesters with shields, batons, water
cannons, rubber bullets, and teargas, but were overpowered by protesters who
disarmed many of the soldiers and seized their weapons. The clash injured 16
protesters and 5 soldiers.

The security forces withdrew in single file amid the
cheering protesters, with some police openly displaying support for the UDD by
brandishing red armbands and other UDD symbols. The UDD ended the siege after
it reached an agreement with Police Lt. Gen. Krisda Pankongchuen, the Region 1
provincial police chief, army commanders, and Thaicom executives, that the
government would allow the People’s Channel signal to be reconnected.

This was the basis of the UDD’s agreement to return
the seized weapons to Krisda. The next day, the government again took the
station off the air.[72]

The
April 10 Clashes

On the morning of April 10, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep
ordered the army to reclaim the Phan Fa Bridge and Ratchaprasong protest camps,
in what he said was a response to UDD leaders ignoring the emergency decree.[73]
As the crackdown commenced, pro-government television stations stopped
broadcasting news from the protests and began airing sports programs and
documentaries. Bangkok’s above-ground BTS Skytrain system was shut down
after UDD leader Arisman announced he would lead protesters in a takeover of
BTS stations to prevent security forces from using the train to deploy troops
to Ratchaprasong.

At around 1 p.m., UDD leader Kwanchai Praipana led Red Shirt
protesters from the Phan Fa Bridge camp to the 1st Army Region
Headquarters on Rajdamnoen Nok Road to demand the army stay in its barracks and
not deploy against Red Shirt camps in the city. Acting government spokesman
Panitan Wattanayagorn told media on behalf of the CRES that the UDD’s dispersal
had begun at 1:30 p.m. “The government has no other option but to uphold
the law,” he said. “The use of force by police and soldiers, as
well as civilian officials, will be carried out carefully and proportionately.
This is the policy given by the prime minister.”[74] The
CRES’s stated rules of engagement involved the following seven steps: (1)
show of force by lining up the security officers holding riot shields and
batons; (2) informing and warning the protesters that the officers are about to
use force; (3) use of shields; (4) use of water cannon or high-powered
amplifiers; (5) use of throw-type tear gas; (6) use of batons; and (7) use of
rubber bullets.[75]

Protesters who tried to storm the army headquarters were
stopped with water cannons and teargas. They threw rocks and bricks at
soldiers, who responded with batons, shields, rubber bullets, and teargas. In
some cases, soldiers fired rubber bullets from shotguns directly at protesters,
causing serious injury.[76]
Video footage and photos also show some soldiers firing M16 and TAR21 assault
rifles in the air. They continued to use live ammunition during the afternoon.

The army moved towards the estimated 5,000 protesters gathered
at the Phan Fa Bridge camp in the early afternoon. UDD protesters clashed with
the advancing soldiers for about three hours near the Makkhawan Bridge, until
soldiers retreated to the nearby Education Ministry buildings at about 4:15
p.m., abandoning their attempt to disperse the protesters. At least 135 people
were hurt in the clashes, including 19 soldiers and 3 police officers.[77]
During the daytime clashes, the army used helicopters to drop teargas on the
protesters, angering the crowd. Unknown gunmen opened fire at those
helicopters, injuring one soldier on board.[78]

Vinai Dithajon, a Thai photojournalist at the scene of the
clash in front of the 1st Army Regional Headquarters, told Human
Rights Watch that soldiers and riot police initially formed a line in front of
Army Headquarters and slowly moved towards the protesters, pushing them back towards
the UDD camp at Makkhawan Bridge. The situation then intensified as more Red
Shirts arrived to defend the camp, then briefly calmed as soldiers awaited new
orders and received water from Red Shirt protesters who knelt before them, only
to worsen again when soldiers ordered the Red Shirts to leave the camp, donning
gas masks and threatening to use teargas if they refused. Additional soldiers
armed with assault rifles also appeared and tried unsuccessfully during the
afternoon and night to take control of the Phan Fa Bridge camp and Rajdamnoen
Road.

The clashes became steadily more violent. Vinai described
what happened until he was himself shot and wounded by one soldier at
approximately 4:30 p.m.:

The military warned the protesters they would use teargas
if the protesters refused to move, and put on their gas masks. Other soldiers
arrived armed with M16s as well. Then the military fired teargas at the Red Shirts,
but the wind brought the teargas back on the soldiers and many of them were
overcome by the gas; they didn’t all have masks. Some of the Red Shirts
started to run. Then the shooting started. Soldiers were running away from
their own teargas. The Red Shirts moved close to the UN building and started
throwing things at the soldiers, and the soldiers fired rubber bullets. The
protesters threw whatever they could at the soldiers, whatever they could find
in the cooking tent, eggs, cooking oil, whatever. The military moved and
stopped, moved and stopped. The soldiers separated in smaller groups. They
fought for about 15 minutes and then they took a break, the protesters started
begging the soldiers not to attack the camp and gave them water.

Then another group of soldiers started firing their water
cannon and teargas from the side of the Government House. I started to go over
there, but I heard many gunshots and decided to walk back to the Red Shirt
barricade. The soldiers and the Red Shirts were fighting again for about 30
minutes or so. The soldiers were firing rubber bullets at the protesters, and
their M16s mostly up in the air. I tried to photograph them firing rubber
bullets and then saw that the soldiers were also aiming their M16s at the
crowd, but not firing at that moment. I kept photographing as the Red Shirts
charged the soldiers and the soldiers ran away. There were many people injured
there from the rubber bullets and the tear gas. The Red Shirts were charging
with bamboo sticks so the soldiers moved back a bit.

I was photographing, and suddenly I was shot in the leg at
about 4:30 p.m. The bullet went right through my flesh. I was wearing a white
shirt, jeans, and a green journalist armband and had two Canon D20 cameras.
After I got shot, I was laying there and the Red Shirts came to help me.…
I asked them to treat me there because I had lost a lot of blood.[79]

Military spokesperson
Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd continued to deny throughout the day that the army had
used live ammunition, saying, “Rumors have it troops used live
ammunition—this is untrue.”[80]
But video of the clashes that Human Rights Watch examined shows live ammunition
being fired in semi-automatic mode, protesters collecting bullet casings and
rounds from the ground, and many protesters apparently suffering from bullet
wounds.[81] Human Rights Watch has
obtained photographs showing that assault rifle magazines that soldiers used on
April 10 were loaded with live, green-tipped 5.56mm ball M855 ammunition.

Meanwhile, at the Ratchaprasong camp, UDD leaders and
protesters expected the government to launch a dispersal operation and used
trucks and cars as barricades to stop riot police from advancing closer. At
about 11:15 a.m. three unarmed plainclothes police officers led by Police
Lt-Col. Chalermpan Ajonbun went behind the main stage at Ratchaprasong to
present arrest warrants for UDD leaders. Urged on by UDD leader Worawuth
Wichaidith, who accused Chalermpan of not being a real police officer,
protesters attacked the three officers until Red Shirt Guards intervened and
escorted them to safety.[82]

After several unsuccessful attempts to breach the UDD
barricades, riot police began to withdraw from Ratchaprasong at about 5:30 p.m.
On the stage, UDD leaders announced that they had reached an agreement with
senior police officers that police would not attempt to disperse the
Ratchaprasong camp. As word of violence near the Phan Fa Bridge reached the
Ratchaprasong camp, UDD leaders called on the protesters to go to Phan Fa
Bridge camp to “defend” their fellow protesters from being “massacred”
by the soldiers, saying that the government had set a deadline to disperse the
Phan Fa Bridge camp by 6 p.m. “There will be blood on the street if the
government does not call off the dispersal operations,” Jatuporn
declared. “Our patience is running out. We will take more serious
measures to retaliate. The dark sky will turn red, red like blood.”[83]

Shortly after nightfall, clashes between the army and the
protesters restarted. During the afternoon, the military had deployed armored
vehicles and army trucks in two streets near the Phan Fa Bridge camp (Khok Wua
junction and Din So Road), leading to a tense standoff with Red Shirts. At Khok
Wua junction, Red Shirt negotiators were successful in physically separating army
troops from angry protesters. However, they came face-to-face near Democracy
Monument and Din So Road, the site of an army massacre of protesters in 1992.

At Khok Wua junction, pro-government Yellow Shirt supporters
also came out behind the army lines, according to a military medic. The medic told
Human Rights Watch that the Yellow Shirts came to the back of the army lines to
offer the soldiers cold water and then urged the soldiers to attack the Red
Shirts, shouting provocative slogans like, “Kill the Red Shirts! Kill
them all!”[84]

The evening’s first clashes broke out around 7:20 p.m.
at Khok Wua junction at the foot of the Khao San Road tourist district, but
soon spilled over into a much greater area. Video footage taken just before the
clashes reached the Democracy Monument in front of Din So Road around 8 p.m.
shows the army trying to calm the crowd by playing music, and Red Shirt
protesters dancing and engaging amicably with the soldiers. Suddenly, shots
rang out. Within minutes a full-scale riot erupted, with protesters throwing
rocks, sticks, and chairs at the soldiers. Several grenades and Molotov
cocktails were also hurled at soldiers, who were forced to retreat. Intense
gunfire followed. As the army attempted to move on the camp, they were
confronted by well-armed men who fired M16 and AK-47 assault rifles at them, particularly
at the Khok Wua intersection on Rajdamnoen Road. They also fired grenades from
M79s and threw M67 hand grenades at the soldiers.[85] News
footage and videos taken by protesters and tourists show several soldiers lying
unconscious and bleeding on the ground, as well as armed men operating with a
high degree of coordination and military skills.[86]
According to some accounts, they specifically aimed at the commanding officers
of the army units involved in the crowd dispersal operations, sowing panic
among the soldiers.[87]
Human Rights Watch investigations concluded this group consisted of Black
Shirts deployed among the UDD protesters.

A medic deployed with the army at Khok Wua junction said the
clash began when the army attempted to advance and clear the road of the
protesters, who responded using plastic police shields captured earlier. The
army responded first with teargas and then with rubber bullets. Gunfire
suddenly came from the top story of a building on the corner of Khok Wua
junction, although the medic, who was treating wounded soldiers further back in
the alley, could not confirm the target of the gunfire. During a site
inspection, Human Rights Watch researchers found more than 50 impact rounds on
the building, presumably fired by soldiers. According to the medic, as the
clash became more violent, a group of armed men believed to be Black Shirts
arrived at the scene to confront the soldiers:

Suddenly, a big van drove up from Khao San Road, and parked
on the corner of the junction. Immediately, a big group of military-looking men
with UDD guard jackets jumped out and ran into the military lines. I was busy
tending the wounded. The van stopped and they ran inside the military lines and
then there were loud bomb blasts. Almost immediately, the group of men from the
van had gone out of sight, but there was still violent fighting. After that
group of men came, all of the wounded who arrived had wounds from bomb blasts
and gunshots. Four or five people were killed then in Khok Wua, and the
military was forced to retreat to the back of the street. We had very seriously
wounded people—one soldier had lost his leg, I remember. The group in the
van were military-experienced people—they are the ones who came to fight
the military, I recognized some of them in the photos that were taken.[88]

Human Rights Watch examined a video released by Agence
France Presse that shows Col. Romklao Thuwatham, in charge of the military
operation near Phan Fa Bridge, trying to give orders to his troops from atop an
armored personnel carrier. A green laser beam can be seen pointed at him.
Seconds later 40mm grenades fired from grenade launchers explode, killing
Romklao and severely wounding other senior officers. UDD leaders loathed Romklao,
deputy chief of staff of the army’s 2nd Infantry Division,
because he commanded the April 2009 dispersal of UDD protesters in Bangkok at
the Dindaeng junction. He had later defended his actions before the Thai Parliament
and blamed the UDD for the violence.

Olivier Sarbil, a French photojournalist and a former
soldier, was behind army lines in Din So Road on April 10 when Black Shirts
attacked soldiers with grenades and gunfire:

The army had APCs [armored personnel carriers] in [Din So]
street, they had three platoons [of soldiers]. The army was playing some music
to try and calm the people down. The Red Shirts were pushing a bit. The army
had used teargas but the wind made it go back against them so one platoon fell
back [into Din So Street]. Then the soldiers started to shoot in the air, and
then they got hit by a grenade. They fell back and had injured [soldiers] with
them, so to give cover to their wounded they returned fire. The Black Shirts
were ahead of them, attacking. I don’t think the army intended to shoot
the Red Shirts, but they had to return fire. The commander [Col. Romklao] was
in the front when he was killed—I was too far back to see the Black
Shirts, but I could see their fire incoming at us. It only lasted a few
minutes, but the soldiers lost all of their armored cars except for one. Then
they treated their wounded—they had at least 30 wounded soldiers at the
back of the soi [small street]. It all happened very quickly, and I
stayed until it cleared up, about 40 minutes. The protesters took some Thai
soldiers prisoner and brought them to the stage, there was still some incoming
fire and the soldiers returning fire.[89]

Another journalist had just finished speaking to the army
commander when fighting began:

Col. Romklao told me not to stick around because it was not
a good situation. He was standing between the APCs and told me to go stand
behind his soldiers. Within one minute after we finished talking, there was a
big boom and I was trying to see which way to run, then they threw a Molotov
cocktail and then two more M79s were fired. Col. Romklao was hit twice by the
M79s [40mm grenades]. I also got some shrapnel from the M79s. Many of the
soldiers dropped their guns and were shouting for the medics, they were
panicking. I tried to reach Colonel Romklao, but was pushed aside by the soldiers.
He wasn’t wearing any body armor. The soldiers were just out of control
at this stage.

Another group of soldiers came to us from the back of [Din
So] street.
The
Red Shirts were pushing the soldiers back and throwing bags with fish sauce,
chilies, and cooking oil at us. I got hit and it blinded me for a bit. I kept
trying to film. More soldiers ran to Col. Romklao, but they didn’t
recognize him because of all the blood, he lay wounded by the first APC and I
dragged him a bit and then the soldiers took him. I saw at least 20 soldiers
down on the ground at this stage, but medics couldn’t reach them. Then I
saw a gunman with a shotgun and another one with an AK-47 in the corner of the
road opposite the McDonald’s.

A lieutenant colonel arrived and [the soldiers] took the
wounded. Other armed Red Shirts were shooting from Khok Wua side, so the
soldiers couldn’t get away. There were lots of gunshots. Then the
soldiers started shooting back from the corner at the back of [Din So] street.
When I was going back in the soi, I saw [Reuters photographer] Hiro
Miramoto filming between the APC and a phone booth. He didn’t have a
bulletproof vest on. When I reached the end of the soi, I filmed Hiro
being taken out of the street by Red Shirts after being shot.

It wasn’t safe to stay there, so I crossed the bridge
at the back of Din So Road to get away. I looked back from the bridge and saw
two gunmen, one with an M79 and another with an M16. They shouted at me not to
film them. I went through the temple and found two military vehicles burned at
the back of the street, and two more near Khao San Road. Between Khok Kua and
the Democracy Monument, there were four ambulances and seven rescue vehicles
taking care of the wounded.[90]

The outnumbered soldiers, simultaneously facing the loss of
their commanding officers; a barrage of grenade attacks; assault rifle fire
from the Black Shirts; as well as rocks, petrol bombs, and some gunfire from
the Red Shirt protesters, withdrew to the back of Din So Road, pulling their
wounded along and abandoning their APCs and weapons. A soldier interviewed by
Human Rights Watch who took part in the dispersal operations at Khok Wua
junction recalled his unit coming under heavy fire, and it withdrawing to avoid
further casualties:

My unit arrived at Khok Wua intersection in the afternoon
[of April 10]. We entered that area in Humvees [four-wheeled military vehicles]
and faced resistance from the protesters right away. They hurled rocks, bricks,
bottles, and other objects they could find at us. Even though soldiers in my
unit had riot suits, helmets, and shields, some of us were injured. I also saw
one protester stab a soldier with a knife. Luckily the blade did not get
through his body armor. Another soldier–I think a corporal–was shot
with a pistol in his leg by a Red Shirt Guard. He was taken into an ambulance.
We used batons, rubber bullets, and teargas to push the protesters back.

By 4:30 or 5 p.m., the protesters agreed to retreat about
20 meters back from our line, and both sides took that moment to tend the
wounded. I was surprised to see how quickly the tension decreased. The
protesters seemed to be relaxed. Some of them started to sing and dance, while
others came to offer food and water to us.

But then after 6 p.m., we received an order to resume the
dispersal operations. The protesters tensed up immediately as they saw soldiers
marching in. In each company, soldiers in the first four lines used shields and
batons to push the protesters. There was one line of soldiers in the back who
had M16 rifles and would fire in the air to scare the protesters away. The
protesters fought back fiercely. We were attacked with petrol bombs and teargas
grenades, as well as rocks, bricks, and bottles. Then a smoke grenade was
thrown at our line. My commander shouted: “It is not teargas! Keep
moving! Keep moving!” As we were about to move forward, I heard a loud
explosion at the first line of my company. After that another explosion came
behind me. At that time, I did not know those explosions were caused by M79
grenades. I heard my commanders shouting, “They hit us with heavy
weapons! Retreat! Everyone retreats!” I saw more than 20 soldiers lying
on the ground, covered with blood. Apart from grenades, we were also shot at
with M16 rifles, AK-47 rifles, and pistols. More and more soldiers were killed
and injured as we tried to retreat. I heard more than 10 explosions. Those
attacks came from the direction of the protesters. We gave cover fire to help
medic units get to those wounded soldiers. Even the medics, with Red Cross
signs on their uniforms, were shot at. It took us a long time to find an escape
route because my unit was not familiar with the streets in Bangkok. But
eventually, we managed to get out and reached the assembly point at the temple,
Wat Bawornnives.[91]

At 9:15 p.m., after almost two hours of deadly clashes, army
spokesperson Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd appeared on television to announce that
the army was retreating from the clash area, and asked the UDD to do the same.
Twenty-six people, including five soldiers, were killed that evening and more
than 860 wounded, including 350 soldiers.[92] According to
autopsy reports, most of the dead on both sides were killed by high-velocity
rounds presumably fired from assault rifles.[93] Human Rights Watch
found that high velocity rounds were fired by both the security forces and
Black Shirts, while some of the Red Shirt protesters and Red Shirt Guard used
pistols during the clashes. Among the dead were Reuters TV cameraman Hiroyuki
Muramoto, 43, who was killed by a high velocity bullet to his chest.[94]
At the UDD camp in Phan Fa Bridge, UDD leaders triumphantly showed off piles of
heavy weapons captured from the army, and at least four army soldiers they had
“captured.” The bodies of two killed Red Shirt protesters were also
placed on the UDD stage.

After the clashes, the UDD on April 14 relocated all
protesters from Phan Fa Bridge to the rally site at Ratchaprasong in
anticipation of another government-launched dispersal operation. On April 18,
the CRES announced that actions that could endanger security officers would not
be tolerated, and that weapons might be used if security officers were harmed.[95]
The UDD protest areas were declared “unsafe” due to the presence of
armed “terrorists,” who could use their weapons to harm both
security personnel and civilians at any time.[96] More checkpoints
and security forces would be put in place around Ratchaprasong to prevent the
access of the protesters, particularly those travelling from outside Bangkok,
to the UDD’s main camp or to expand their protests to other parts of
Bangkok.[97]

Autopsy report by the police forensic unit, showing a
seven-centimeter wound on the chest of Hiroyuki Muramoto caused by high
velocity ammunition. Source: Office of Forensic Science, Royal Thai Police

Against the backdrop of growing tensions between the
government and the UDD, bomb attacks still continued and instilled terror in
the public. For example, on April 10 and April 16, high voltage electricity
pylons in Ayuthaya province were bombed as part of what the government claimed was
a “terrorist” attempt to plunge parts of Bangkok into darkness.[98]
The UDD denied responsibility of those attacks.[99]

April
16 Attempt to Arrest UDD Leaders

Thai authorities suffered further humiliation on April 16
when a televised attempt to arrest a group of UDD leaders, including Arisman
Pongruangrong, went awry.

Around 10 a.m. Deputy Prime Minister Suthep appeared on
national television to announce that the SC Park Hotel on the outskirts of
Bangkok had been surrounded. He reported that a special police unit under the
authority of Assistant Police Commissioner Gen. Asawin Kwanmuang would detain Arisman
and his fellow UDD leaders, who the government accused of being
“terrorists” responsible for the April 10 violence and other attacks.

Hundreds of UDD protesters rushed to surround the hotel,
trapping police inside. Arisman’s escape was carried live on television,
which showed him descending from a third floor window via a rope into the arms
of UDD protesters and being driven away. Inside the hotel, protesters
outnumbered police, two of whose commanding officers were taken hostage in
exchange for the safe departure from the hotel of other UDD leaders, including
Suporn “Rambo” Attawong, Payap Panket, Wanchana Kerddee, and
Yosawarit “Jeng” Chuklin.

UDD leaders hardened their stance after the botched arrests,
with Arisman announcing from the stage at the Ratchaprasong camp:

[F]rom now on, our mission is to hunt down [Prime Minister]
Abhisit and [Deputy Prime Minister] Suthep. If you catch them, bring them here
and pick up your rewards.... I offer 10 million baht [US$3.2 million] for the
capture of Abhisit and Suthep.… This is a war between the government and
the Red Shirts. [100]

The
April 21-22 Confrontations at the Saladaeng Junction

On April 20, large groups of pro-government protesters
coordinated by PAD leader Dr. Tul Sittisomwong, together with local residents
and vendors mostly from Bangkok’s Silom area, began counter-protests on
Silom Road outside the UDD protest camp at the Saladaeng junction, near the
Dusit Thani hotel. The two sides had a series of small clashes on the night of
April 20. While many pro-government protesters were dressed in ordinary
clothes, it appears that most were Yellow Shirts. PAD leaders decided to send
their supporters out in ordinary civilian clothes as the so-called
“multicolored shirts” to create the impression that
“ordinary” Thais rather than PAD activists were reacting to the UDD
protests.

Incident map showing explosions at Saladaeng junction on
April 22, 2010, published by Bangkok Post, April 23, 2010.

Police were deployed in the area to keep Rama IV Road clear between
the PAD protesters and the UDD protest camp. The next day, April 21,
pro-government protesters and UDD protesters exchanged shouts and insults from
6 p.m. until about 11 p.m., but little violence took place. According to a
foreign journalist at the scene, at around 11 p.m., a group of about 20 or so
pro-government protesters began throwing rocks and firing slingshots at the
barricade protecting the UDD protest camp. Neither police nor soldiers deployed
in the area intervened.[101]
The UDD protesters reacted by throwing firecrackers towards PAD protesters and
the situation did not develop further. Finally, at around 11:45 p.m., police
finally deployed to end the violence after the pro-government protesters
attacked and beat a foreigner who was dressed in black with a red armband.[102]

On the evening of April 22, pro-government protesters
gathered in large groups and clashed with UDD protesters near the Saladaeng
intersection. Both sides hurled rocks, bottles, and petrol bombs and fired
slingshots.[103]
Riot police finally intervened to stop pro-government protesters, beating some
badly; other protesters sought safety with nearby army troops.[104]

According to media reports, when the pro-government
protesters began clashing again with the UDD on the evening of April 22, UDD
leader Arisman Pongruengrong told the protesters at the Ratchaprasong camp that
a group of “men wearing black” were coming to the assistance of the
Red Shirt camp.[105]
At about 8 p.m. that night, three M79-launched grenades were fired towards the
Saladaeng junction and Silom Road where pro-government protesters were
gathered. Several fell through the roof of the Saladaeng BTS elevated train
station, scattering shrapnel and parts of the steel roof on crowds gathered
below. News footage and videos taken by participants of the pro-government
demonstration at the time of the grenade attack shows a peaceful crowd waving
Thai flags and listening to music underneath the BTS station.[106]

While the first three grenades caused limited injuries, two
more 40mm grenades fired from M79 launchers shortly afterwards landed in the
crowd of pro-government protesters.[107]
Tanyanan Taebthong, 26, died, and at least 78 persons were wounded, including
several foreign nationals.[108]
A foreign photojournalist present during the attacks said:

On April 22, the Silom group had gathered some 500 people
to protest against the UDD. A small group came and started fighting [with the
UDD]. The 22nd was the biggest anti-UDD protest to date, so tensions
were very high. I crossed into the Red camp and they were very tense, because
they thought the “multicolored” group would attack their camp. At
about 8:30 or 9 p.m., we saw three explosions hit the Saladaeng [BTS] station
and most people left the area. But a group of [pro-government protesters] was
sitting near the Au Bon Pain shop, and then another explosion hit there and
people were running to the BTS. I went to the Au Bon Pain and saw two women
full of blood and many wounded.[109]

Soon after the attack, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep appeared
on national television and accused militants in the UDD’s network of
launching the grenade attack from within their camp. Following the attacks,
pro-government supporters started looking for Red Shirts to beat up, stopping
and searching cars on Silom Road and nearby areas. A foreign journalist saw
pro-government supporters beat at least four suspected Red Shirt supporters:

One hour after the grenade explosions, the [pro-government]
protesters thought the attack had come from a nearby elevated parking lot and
they caught someone there and started to try and lynch him, then the police
came and told them to stop and took the guy away. Then they found two more
people and started to lynch them, they were stopping cars and looking for Red
Shirt ID cards. The police came again to stop them. Then the pro-government
protesters started throwing rocks at the Red Shirts, and the police tried to
stop them. The pro-government protesters got angry, telling the police,
“Why don’t you stop the Red Shirts?” and started clashing
with the police, and then the police chased them and the pro-government
protesters ran behind the soldier lines.… After the 22nd, the police
blocked the road so there were no more pro-government protests there.[110]

While a full investigation is needed to determine where the
grenades were fired from, the fact that they exploded in an area filled with
pro-government protesters and army troops just outside the UDD camp, and the
known use of M79 grenade launchers by UDD Black Shirts, indicates they may well
have originated from the UDD camp. Since the Vietnam War-era M79 grenade
launcher has a maximum range of 350 meters, the grenades could only have been
fired from at most a few city blocks away, but likely even closer because of
the tall buildings in the vicinity.[111]
According to Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunan, director of the Justice Ministry’s
Central Institute of Forensic Science, the damage at the BTS station shows that
the grenades fell onto the elevated BTS station’s roof from above, as the
metal roof bent downwards where the impact rounds are located. This suggests
the grenades were fired downwards, from an elevation higher than the BTS
station.She indicated the grenades could have been launched from
the seventh or eighth floor of King Bhumibol Building in Chulalongkorn
Hospital, which the UDD had surrounded. But she noted that all close circuit
television cameras inside the building were damaged, leaving no visual trace of
the perpetrators.[112]

After the grenade attacks, the PAD and pro-government
protesters accused the police, who had earlier intervened to stop
pro-government protesters attacking the UDD camp, of sitting idly by and
refusing to help protesters and soldiers evacuate injured from the area.[113]

According to many witnesses and observers who spoke to Human
Rights Watch, the incidents on April 21 and 22 demonstrated the divided
loyalties of the army and police troops at the scene. The soldiers, many of
whom were believed to be supportive of the Yellow Shirt movement, did not stop
pro-government protesters from reaching the UDD barricades or attacking UDD
protesters, even though maintaining safety and security in the area would have
justified doing so. Soldiers at Saladaeng junction also allowed the
“multicolor” and Yellow Shirts to stay behind their lines when they
were chased and assaulted by riot police. At the same time, the police, many of
whom were believed to be pro-Thaksin and pro-UDD, repeatedly intervened to stop
pro-government protesters from attacking the UDD camp, but seemed unwilling to aid
wounded pro-government protesters.

The
April Raids on Chulalongkorn Hospital

When the UDD set up a new protest site at Ratchaprasong
junction on April 3, protesters began building barricades of bamboo poles and
tires between Chulalongkorn Hospital and Lumphini Park on Ratchadamri Road.
Patients were left with only one lane to access the hospital. The hospital
administration asked Thai authorities to clear the area, but the CRES responded
that additional security would not be provided.[114]

In the weeks that followed, tensions mounted between
hospital staff and the UDD. UDD
security forces, some wielding knives and sharpened bamboo staves, began to
inspect vehicles entering the hospital due to the belief that doctors at the
facility supported the Yellow Shirts and the government.[115]
On several occasions, protesters searched ambulances with acutely ill patients,
hospital officials said, claiming that soldiers could hide weapons in those
vehicles. None were found. Hospital staff described the UDD protesters taunting
and verbally harassing them on their way to the hospital. Nonetheless, hospital
staff continued to treat UDD protesters for acute traumatic injuries and exacerbations
of chronic illnesses.

One doctor told Human Rights Watch:

[H]ospital administration urged the Red Shirts many times
not to disrupt our daily services, but they did not listen. Their loudspeakers
were blasting constantly, disrupting patients and hospital staff every day
almost 24 hours. No one could rest properly. Their barricades and the way their
guards searched ambulances, as well as any cars that went in and out, had
increasingly made everyone, hospital staff and patients, feel unsafe. Would you
feel safe if you had to go through these Red Shirt guards when some of them had
knives and sharpened bamboo stakes, and they searched your cars and your bags?

Some of them were drunk and rude. My colleague had green
and red beams from laser pointers on his face and his chest as he drove through
the hospital gate. The Red Shirt guards thought it was quite funny to see
doctors freaked out. But I think that was a very bad joke, especially when many
people had been shot by snipers.

Many senior doctors had their cars smashed by Red Shirt
guards. The Por Bor Ror Building [in the hospital compound, next to Saladaeng
junction] had been shot with guns and other projectiles every night. You could
see bullet holes on the wall and on the window. At one point, we could not turn
on the light inside Por Bor Ror Building, this was to avoid being shot at.

Those guards told me they believed doctors here supported
the Yellow Shirts and the government. They feared that we would allow the
Yellow Shirts or soldiers to launch attacks against them from the hospital
compound. Some of them even said something so absurd like the hospital allowed
soldiers to hide inside or use our ambulances to transport weapons. How could
that be possible? The Red Shirts kept repeating those accusations every time I
talked to them even though they never found weapons or soldiers inside the
hospital. I think what the Red Shirts actually saw were security guards of the
hospital, who had green uniforms, and mistook them for soldiers.[116]

A nurse recalled that tensions began to increase around the
hospital on the evening of April 21 after clashes between the UDD and
pro-government groups at Saladaeng junction:

As I was working in the ward, I heard commotion on the
street before midnight. The Red Shirt was clashing with the multicolor group.
They hurled rocks and bottles, and fired slingshot projectiles at each other. I
heard explosions. When I watched from the window, I saw the Red Shirts throwing
homemade bombs and petrol bombs at the multicolor group. But when I heard
gunshots, something that sounded like gunshot, I stepped away from the window.
Other nurses were crouching on the floor. The clash went on past midnight.[117]

The same nurse said a group of armed UDD security guards
demanded entrance to the hospital to search for soldiers; a pro-government
physician named Tul Sitthisomwong; and his “multicolor” groups on
April 23:

That night, about 50 Red Shirt guards stormed in saying
that they saw the multicolor group leader, Dr. Tul, hiding in the hospital
together with soldiers. Those Red Shirt guards had metal pipes and sharpened
bamboo stakes. We were all scared as the hospital administration negotiated
with them. Police also came but could not get the Red Shirt guards out. We had
to let them search the first floor. They did not find Dr. Tul, the multicolor
group, or soldiers. After that, they withdrew.[118]

Increasingly aggressive searches
continued in subsequent nights, with Red Shirt guards returning to search the
hospital for the multicolor group and soldiers:

The hospital administration told us that they might have to
shut down the hospital and relocate the patients. I cried when I heard that. I
felt the situation was already depressing at that point because we had to move
many patients from their beds and put them on cushions on the floor, in order
to keep them away from bullets and slingshot projectiles that might come
through the window. Doctors and nurses had to crawl on the floor to treat
patients. I could not believe something like this would ever happen.[119]

On April 26,
approximately 60 UDD protesters demanded entrance to the hospital to search for
Dr. Tul. Hospital administrators notified the police when UDD protesters
entered the ground floor of the hospital. The police arrived in less than 10
minutes and the protesters left peacefully. Following this incident, senior
hospital administrators contacted government officials to express their concern
for the safety of approximate­ly 1,200 patients, but were told not to
expect more pro­tection.[120]
A senior hospital administrator told Human Rights Watch how two days later, on
April 28, he found five liquid propane tanks that protesters had deployed
within 50 meters of the emergency room entrance. He said UDD security guards
and protesters had placed the tanks, some of which were wired with hand
grenades, at the site:

The Red Shirts put LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] tanks in
front of the hospital, near the emergency room entrance. Hospital staff also
saw that some of LPG tanks at Saladaeng junction barricades were modified and
wired with hand grenades as improvised explosive devices. If those tanks
exploded, the damage would be devastating. Moreover, some of the Red Shirt
guards hooked plastic tubes with those gas tanks and walked into the hospital
car park, threatening to set fire on Por Bor Ror Building. Leaders of the Red
Shirts also announced on stage, and we could clearly hear that from here,
telling the protesters to burn tires at their barricades if soldiers tried to
disperse them. Their barricades were so close to the hospital.[121]

The administration immediately evacuated all hospital
buildings within 200 meters of the tanks and by early afternoon had relocated
over 200 patients, including some 120 children, to recently constructed
buildings in another part of the hospital compound. Patients had to lie on
mattresses on the floor since the new wards were not scheduled to open for
months.

Tensions increased throughout the day, as the af­ternoon
brought news of increased fighting in northern Thailand. Several explosions
were heard outside the hospital. Later that day, the protesters extended a
clear plastic tube from one of the propane tanks toward the hospital basement
and, according to two witnesses, threatened to burn the building down. They
later withdrew the plastic tube after negotiating with hospital security
guards. That evening protesters returned to the emergency room to look for
soldiers and police officers. They spoke lewdly to physicians, nurses, and
other hospital staff, and threatened to return the next day to take them hos­tage.[122]

The next day, April 29, at about 6 p.m. UDD leader Phayap
Panket and some 25 Red Guards appeared at the gate of the emergen­cy
department with more than 100 protesters, some carrying sharpened bamboo
stakes, to demand they again be let in to search for police and soldiers. UDD
protesters shouted threats and obscenities, and grabbed the shirts of several
hospital guards. The protesters refused to believe the senior
administrators’ assurances that soldiers were not permitted in the
hospital. Hospital administrators called police, who had not yet established a
formal presence nearby.[123]

UDD leaders persisted in their demand to search the hos­pital.
Hospital administrators felt compelled by the large number of protesters to
acquiesce, although requested a limited number of searchers participate.
However, several hundred stormed the hospital compound and began to search two
of the previously evacuated larger buildings. When police arrived, they
accompanied UDD leaders in their search of other hospital buildings, while
other UDD protesters walked throughout the hospital and surrounding grounds in
small groups. Physicians and nurses expressed shock at the brazen attitude of
the UDD protesters. One doctor told Human Rights Watch, “We are neutral.…
Maybe they don’t understand the principles of the Red Cross.”[124]

For safety reasons, the hospital administration decided that
evening to close the emergency room and pharmacy and moved most hospital staff
to buildings further from the UDD encampment. Hospital administrators held an
emergency meeting and decided to evacuate the entire hospital early the next
morning. By 7 a.m. on April 30, staff began to transfer and discharge the
remaining 600 patients. By that evening only the Supreme Patriarch, Thailand’s
most revered Buddhist monk, remained as a patient in the hospital. After he was
transferred the next day, the hospital had no patients.

The rush to move patients out of the Chulalongkorn Hospital
was widely reported, with live images of terminally ill patients being carried
or wheeled out from the hospital buildings. Among those patients, Thuanthong
Vitthayacheewa died of heart failure on May 4 as his condition worsened during
the transfer.[125]

Several Red Shirt leaders soon apologized for the raid,
calling it a mistake. Weng Tojirakarn, a physician and protest leader, was
quoted as saying, “The situation got out of control. It is not our policy
to obstruct hospital operations.”[126]

Many Thais were outraged by the incursion into the hospital,
leading even some sympathetic to the UDD to question the methods and the
judgment of their leaders.[127]

On May 1, the CRES issued an order to the police to reclaim
the area in front of Chulalongkorn Hospital, and stated that force could be
used if negotiations with the UDD

On May 2, Metropolitan Police Lt Gen. Santhan Chayanon
negotiated with the UDD to clear one lane on each side of Ratchadamri Road in
front of Chulalongkorn Hospital. Later that day the UDD moved the barricade to
comply with this agreement. On May 3, the Bangkok Post reported that
Chulalongkorn Hospital had demanded that protesters clear the road entirely,
from Saladaeng to Sarasin intersections, “for [the] safety of medical
personnel and patients.”[129]

VI.
Deadly Days of May: Breakdown of Negotiations and “Live-Fire” Zones

After nearly a month of on-again, off-again talks between
Prime Minister Abhisit and the UDD leadership, the two parties came very close
to an agreement, only to back away at the last moment.

On May 3, Abhisit made a live televised
address to propose a five-point reconciliation plan as a precondition for
cutting his term in office short and holding a new election six months later on
November 14.[130]
Abhisit emphasized that although he would not be able to accommodate the
UDD’s call for dissolution of Parliament within 15-30 days, he would
agree to initiate comprehensive reforms to address inequality and injustice in
society. Abhisit said he expected the UDD to respond to his proposal and end
their rally by May 10.

At the same time, Abhisit’s secretary-general,
Korbsak Sabhavasu, was dispatched to convince UDD
leaders that they could tell the protesters that they had achieved their goals
in forcing the government to step down and hold a new election.

Abhisit also proposed a commission of
inquiry into political violence committed by all sides. This
had two apparent aims: first, to demonstrate the government and military was
willing to take responsibility for using violence against the UDD. Second, to identify
radical elements within the UDD, which would be excluded from any amnesty
package and prosecuted for what the government termed “terrorist
activities.”[131]
There was no precedent for holding the military accountable, leading to some
scepticism about this part of the proposal.

On May 4, UDD media coordinator Sean
Boonpracong said the UDD welcomed Abhisit’s proposals and wanted to avoid
further casualties. However, he urged an earlier election date.[132]
On May 9, UDD leaders Jatuporn and Nuttawut announced that the UDD had agreed
to Abhisit’s roadmap. However, they said the UDD protest would only end
when Abhisit and Suthep, as the CRES director, were officially charged for the
use of violence against the UDD. This demand was a non-starter for the
government.

The position of the UDD hardened after Major
General Khattiya, also known as Seh Daeng, went behind the main stage at the
Ratchaprasong camp to talk to Arisman on May 11. Around 10:30 p.m., Khattiya
announced that Abhisit’s roadmap was unacceptable and that he would take
action on behalf of Thaksin to remove Veera, Nuttawut, and other UDD leaders
because they had collaborated with the government. According to Khattiya, he
had convinced Jatuporn to carry on with the demonstrations and lead the UDD
together with Arisman and Suporn.[133]
Security around the perimeter of the Ratchaprasong camp had from that moment
been strengthened in anticipation of an imminent dispersal. Khattiya was quoted
in media as saying:

The government will have to depend on some 6,000 soldiers
to disperse us. The police is no longer with the government. If the soldiers
charge in, we will be ready to fight. They [the soldiers] will need 200 coffins
for themselves. And we will prepare 400 coffins for our side.[134]

When the UDD refused to break up the protest camp on May 12,
Abhisit withdrew his November election offer and warned of an imminent
dispersal of the UDD camp.[135]
Kokaew Pikunthong, a UDD leader, warned on May 12 that a group of 400 to 500
hard-core militants under the control of Khattiya might resist any army attempt
to retake the camp.[136]
Almost immediately after the announcement that negotiations had ended, the army
began sealing off the Ratchaprasong protest camp, making entry and exit from
the area more difficult.[137]
The CRES also enforced an order to shut off water and power supplies to the
protest camp, as well as telephone signals.[138]

On the evening of May 13, around 7 p.m., Khattiya was shot
in the head by a sniper during an interview with New York Times reporter
Thomas Fuller.[139]
He died in Vajira Hospital on May 17.[140] The government
has denied responsibility for his killing, but most observers believe that he
was shot by an army sniper—mostly probably to remove him from his
leadership role in the Red Shirts. Whatever the reason, Khattiya’s
shooting was unlawful under international human rights law.[141]
International standards on the use of force by security forces, including
military personnel in a law enforcement role, permit lethal force only when
absolutely necessary to prevent loss of life or serious injury, provided the
force is proportionate to the threat posed.[142] The government
has provided no information to indicate these conditions were met.

A photographer who was present when Khattiya was shot, and
remained in the area afterwards, described how armed Black Shirts soon began
firing upon the soldiers:

After [the shooting of Maj. Gen. Khattiya], the Black
Shirts became extremely angry. They started breaking as many lights in the area
as they could to make the area darker so snipers couldn’t fire at them.
Suddenly, I heard a lot of explosions and gunfire for about 20 minutes, it was
very heavy.

I tried to hide [from the gunfire] behind the Rama VI
statue [in Lumphini Park]. The Black Shirts came into the tents located behind
the Rama VI statue. There were five or six black garbage bags hidden behind the
tents, and the Black Shirts took those garbage bags. I saw them open one of the
garbage bags and it had three or four AK-47 assault rifles in it. They took
them out and started shooting immediately towards the security forces at the
Chulalongkorn Hospital and other buildings. They were extremely angry. The
security forces started shooting back. There were many Black Shirts around,
they started to move towards the barricades and in other directions.… I
stayed around until midnight and there was gunfire until then. After Seh Daeng’s
[Khattiya’s] shooting, the area around Rama VI statue became only for the
Black Shirts, no more protesters.[143]

Role
of Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol

Much attention has focused on the role that Maj. Gen.
Khattiya Sawasdipol, known as “Seh Daeng,” played in the
demonstrations. Human Rights Watch research found that he may have been
involved in violence against government forces even before the protests
started.

Following a meeting he had with Thaksin in Cambodia, on
January 14, 2010, he was suspended from the army by the army
commander-in-chief, Gen. Anupong Paojinda.
The
next day an M79 grenade launcher was fired at the office of General Anupong.
Khattiya denied responsibility for the attack.

Khattiya admitted to recruiting and training a few dozen
armed militants called the “Ronin Warriors” to fight the PAD. On
December 6, 2008, he publicly praised the warriors for their skills in using
M79 grenade launchers to terrorize the PAD during the occupation of the
Government House in 2008. “Their aims were so good that the grenades landed
accurately and killed one of the [PAD] guard leaders,” he told media.
“After a couple more M-79 attacks at the Government House in the
following nights, there had been more than 40 injuries among the PAD protesters
and guards.”[144]

In his public statements, Khattiya often hinted that he was
in charge of armed militants responsible for attacks on security forces. He
even suggested that his fighters were responsible for killing Colonel Romklao
during the April 10 violence.[145]
His statements to the press often appeared designed to anger his military
colleagues, such as when he criticized the military’s use of armored
vehicles during the failed April 10 dispersal attempt as “the thought
process of homosexuals.… [T]he army acts with homosexual emotions.”[146]

Khattiya carried out daily “inspections” of the
barricades together with his bodyguards, and often gave orders to local Red
Shirt militants on how to improve them. In 2008, when Yellow Shirt protesters
gathered in Bangkok to protest against the pro-Thaksin government of Samak
Sundaravej, Khattiya started training a militia to fight the protesters and
“provide the UDD with protection when it is on the move.”[147]

On May 1, Khattiya clashed with Ari Krainara, head of the
Red Shirt Guards, over removing a barricade in front of Chulalongkorn Hospital
that Khattiya wanted to keep in place. Khattiya reportedly pushed Ari to the
ground. Around the same time, Khattiya also clashed with the moderate
leadership of the UDD, who sought to reach a compromise with the government. Khattiya
said the Red Shirt rally could not be ended without an order from Thaksin, and
rejected the compromise agreement the UDD had reached. Following his
altercation with Ari Krainara and the mainstream Red Shirt leaders, Khattiya
briefly gained more control over hard-line Red Shirt guards who were not
willing to comply with the demands to clear the barricades in front of
Chulalongkorn Hospital. During that period, he also accelerated his recruitment
of the “Ronin Warriors,” according to a Red Shirt leader:

Seh Daeng [Khattiya] had conflicts with a lot of people,
including some police officials. He often predicted bombings and then they
would happen. A lot of people questioned his real capability, but he tried to
attach himself to the Red Shirt movement. I told the other Red Shirt leaders
that we needed to keep separate from Seh Daeng, and this was the policy
eventually announced. He saw his role as helping set up the barricades, and
making it look like a force was prepared for fighting [the army]—this was
a problem. But still, we didn’t see any armed elements prepared by him
until [they appeared] after his assassination.

In the last few days before he was shot, some Red [Shirt] Guards
came under the control of Seh Daeng. A few days before, there was a fight
between Seh Daeng and Ari, the head of Red [Shirt] Guard security, and he
pushed Ari down. Then there were problems within the Red Shirt
leadership—some like Veera wanted to make a deal with the government and
to stop the demonstrations, but the crowd and hard-line leaders like Seh Daeng,
Arisman, and Jatuporn wanted to continue the protests.[148]

However, while Khattiya surely played a role with the Ronin
Warriors, most experts and observers whom Human Rights Watch interviewed
maintain that he was not the true leader of the Black Shirts, who carried out
most of the armed confrontations with the military. Khattiya’s own
fighters appear to have consisted mostly of street thugs and others recruited
and openly trained by him in 2008, rather than the elite and well-trained military
elements that carried out most of the armed attacks, such as the April 10
attack. According to a Red Shirt member who operated a food station in the
Saladaeng areas controlled by Khattiya and spoke to him on a daily basis:

Seh Daeng was not as powerful as people assumed. He had a
team of fighters called the Ronin Warriors, but these were not the Black Shirts
who fought [on April 10]. His Ronin people were city people, not real military
people. I spoke to Seh Daeng many times after his people took over the
Saladaeng area, because my camp was also based there. Seh Daeng was there every
day, and we spoke regularly about his strategy to protect the Red Shirts. He
had a strategy, but no real power.[149]

Government officials, particularly those at the Justice
Ministry’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI), paid more attention
to some of the Ronin Warriors than to Khattiya himself. The DSI’s ongoing
investigations allege that Khattiya’s close aide, Surachai Thewarat, was
responsible for the May 8 shooting at a police checkpoint at Saladaeng junction
intersection that killed one police officer and injured two others. Surachai is
also accused of involvement in the grenade attacks on the Lumphini Police
Station on May 19.[150]
Khattiya’s bodyguard, Aram Saeng-aroon, was later arrested on October 7
and accused of playing a key role in providing weapons to the Black Shirts.
According to the DSI, Khattiya recruited Aram from a Thahan Phran unit
in Pak Thong Chai district of Nakhon Ratchasima province and gave him combat
training.[151]

Khattiya had a large following among urban youth and toughs
who created and manned the barricades he helped design, and who confronted the
army with mostly homemade weapons like slingshots (firing metal bolts and ball
bearings), homemade fireworks, rockets, petrol bombs, burning tires, and rocks.
These young men were the most visible element of violent resistance against the
military, particularly as the clashes grew more violent following the shooting
of Khattiya on May 13.

There is little evidence these young men had much to do with
the UDD protest movement, but instead flocked to the protest site in increasing
numbers as the confrontation between the army and the protest camp grew more
violent. Many journalists and other observers whom Human Rights Watch
interviewed noted how these young people had little in common with the ordinary
protesters at the Ratchaprasong camp, where a bizarre dichotomy developed
between ordinary Red Shirt protesters continuing with regular protest rally
activities, and deadly confrontations taking place between the army and more
militant protesters on the camp’s outskirts, particularly at the Din
Daeng and Bon Kai junctions. However, even at these barricades, some observers
noted Black Shirts with military experience directing the young men at the
frontlines in activities such as burning tires and throwing petrol bombs.[152]

“Live-Fire Zones”

Following the shooting of Khattiya on the evening of May 13
and the fierce gunfire exchanges that followed, the government allowed soldiers
greater leeway to use live fire.

Existing rules of engagement, which the CRES outlined in
April, mandated seven steps of increasingly “heavy” measures before
live ammunition could be fired, and then only in the air.[153]
On May 14, the CRES set out new, expanded rules of engagement that liberalized
the use of live fire against the protesters. Under the new rules, soldiers were
allowed to use live ammunition in three circumstances: as warning shots to
deter demonstrators from moving closer; for self-defense; and when forces have
“a clear visual of terrorists.”[154] The term
“terrorists” was left undefined, giving soldiers no guidance as to
what constituted a permissible target and providing a basis for the use of
firearms and lethal force that exceeded what is permitted under international
law in policing situations.[155]
On May 15, “Live Firing Zone” banners were hoisted by the
authorities in areas where troops reported coming under heavy fire, such as
Ratchaprarop and Bon Kai.[156]
Civilians, including medic volunteers, were reportedly killed and wounded by
army snipers in these areas.[157]

Beginning on May 14, Thai security forces faced
demonstrators who were better organized and resorted more quickly to violent
tactics. Groups of mainly young men now openly attacked the army at the
barricades, especially in Bon Kai and Din Daeng, using flaming tires, petrol
bombs, slingshot-fired metal balls, and powerful homemade explosives and other
weapons. Most of the young men who joined the fight at the barricades seemed to
have little in common with the UDD protesters at the camp. On numerous
occasions, Black Shirt militants appeared at the barricades to join the fight,
firing assault weapons and M79 grenade launchers at soldiers.

A Red Shirt Guard leader told Human Rights Watch how he had
helped organize the Din Daeng clashes on May 14-16. He said the UDD had decided
to create a new barricade at Din Daeng to stop the army from dispersing the
Ratchaprasong camp, and that they had tried to force the army back by
attempting to move their barricades forward towards the army positions. He
confirmed that groups of armed Black Shirts with military training came to join
them in the evenings when journalists had left for the night:

After the reporters were told to leave, the Black Shirts
arrived. I saw them for three evenings in Din Daeng. They were the first real
military guys who came to help us. They looked like thahan phran [army
paramilitary volunteers] but they were from the military, only the smallest
group of five Black Shirts was from the border police…. They sent their
representatives to us to warn us they were attacking the army, they created a
safety zone before they attacked the army.[158]

Use of Children

Human
Rights Watch learned of at least one case when children were used in militant
activity during the clashes at Din Daeng and Bon Kai. At the Din Daeng
barricades, a foreign photographer watched a young boy, aged approximately 14
year-old, being instructed to carry a large petrol bomb from the barricades
towards the army position and into a building, and later receiving money for
his effort by the Red Shirt leader at the barricades:

On May 16, there was an uncompleted building near the
Din Daeng barricade, next to a tall hotel. I saw two young boys wearing
motorcycle helmets come to the front [of the fighting], and told them to go
away because it was too dangerous, but they didn’t listen to me. There
were some leaders of the barricades and they went to talk to the boys. Then I
saw the boys helping to prepare the petrol bombs. Then the smallest of the
boys, he looked about nine or ten, he came forward carrying a bunch of petrol
bombs and he talked to one of the leaders. Then the smallest boy ran towards
the uncompleted building in front of the barricade, hiding in the bushes as
he went. I tried to follow him but I was too big to get in there.

I lost
sight of him, but an hour later there was a fire on the 10th floor
of the building. He had walked all the way over there, then up, and started
the fire. He then came back the same way and the same Red Shirt guy gave him
a few hundred baht [worth a few US dollars]. I asked the boy why he had done
this, and he said, laughing, “That’s my job, my job.”[159]

During the clashes that occurred between May 14 and May 18,
the new rules of engagement either facilitated more shootings of demonstrators or
were simply ignored. Between the shooting of Khattiya and the final dispersal
of the protest camp on May 19, at least 34 protesters and 2 soldiers were
killed in the clashes, and another 256 wounded.[160]
Human Rights Watch’s investigations found that army snipers in buildings
overlooking the protest sites, as well as soldiers on the defensive barricades
on the ground, frequently fired on protesters who were either unarmed or posed
no imminent threat of death or serious injury to the soldiers or others.[161]
Many of those whom soldiers targeted apparently included anyone who tried to
enter the “no-go” zone between the UDD barricades and army lines,
or who threw rocks, petrol bombs, or burning tires towards the soldiers—from
distances too great to be a serious threat to the soldiers’ lines.

While Thai authorities have not released comprehensive
forensic details of the wounds sustained by those killed between May 14 and May
18, the incidents that Human Rights Watch reviewed show unarmed protesters
appeared to have been killed with single shots to the head, indicating possible
use of snipers and high-powered scopes. For example, on the morning of May 14,
photographer Roger Arnold was filming a wounded protester being treated in
Lumphini Park when he found himself under heavy gunfire. A man running just
behind him, part of the group treating the wounded man, was killed instantly by
a shot to the head.[162]
Arnold, who covered the clashes between May 14 and May 18 on a daily basis,
said: “I didn’t see any armed people getting shot. What you had
were snipers with scopes taking people out with headshots, people who at most
had a slingshot.”[163]

Video footage and eyewitness accounts show the army
frequently fired into crowds of unarmed protesters, often wounding and killing
several. Nelson Rand, a foreign journalist, described to Human Rights Watch how
he was repeatedly shot as he tried to cross the street near Lumphini Park to
reach a second group of Red Shirt protesters:

I first was filming with the army on Wireless Road, close
to the Lumphini police station. Then I ran across to the Red Shirt side. I was
near the Lumphini police station. I wanted to cross the street because there
was another group of Red Shirts there as well. As I ran across the street, I
was shot in my wrist. I kept running and ended up beside another person who was
shot and he was waving a white towel. As I got down, I was shot again in the
leg. I was screaming for help. I didn’t see any armed people around there
amongst the Reds. All the shots were coming from the army, as far as I know. A
Red Shirt security guard ran across the street and grabbed me by the arm, he
later told me I was shot again in the side as he was dragging me but I had lost
consciousness by then.[164]

On May 15, protesters in the Rang Nam, Bon Kai, and Klong
Toey neighborhoods tried to set up new barricades to widen the area under UDD
control, and met deadly gunfire as army soldiers frequently firing with live
bullets towards the protesters.[165]
One medic wearing a red helmet was shot dead with a gunshot wound to the head.[166]
Journalists and photographers, wearing clearly marked “press”
signs, were wounded after they came under fire while reporting the situation in
those areas.[167]

Amid escalating violence, Senator Lertrat Rattavanich led an
attempt to broker peace talks between the government and the UDD. At least 12
negotiation sessions between Lertrat and Nuttawut took place between May 4 and
11, 2010. The UDD stressed that a key condition was its leaders would agree to
surrender to government charges only if it was assured they would be granted
bail. The government accepted this demand. According to Lertrat, on May 10 the
UDD then added another condition that the government must also submit itself to
the justice system:

The leaders then said that was needed, as the demonstrators
were so emotional because of the 19 deaths and the hundreds wounded in the
April 10 clashes. It was necessary for Deputy Prime Minister Suthep
[Thaugsuban] to surrender to power abuse charges, before they could tell the
demonstrators to return home.[168]

On May 18, 2010, while Lertrat and his group were meeting
with Nuttawut and other UDD leaders at Ratchaprasong junction, the government
made a televised announcement that it would only enter a negotiation with the
UDD after the protesters returned home. Lertrat believed such conditions would
not be acceptable to the UDD:

The demonstrators were stressed out because many of their
people were killed and hurt. Given the grievances, the UDD leaders admitted
that they had problems in controlling the protesters. They needed a good
explanation if they wanted to bring the demonstration to an end, that is, the
wrongdoers must be punished.

They also said the tire burning here and there could be
stopped only if supporters were brought into Ratchaprasong. The leaders asked
soldiers to stop firing first. I told the UDD frankly that if I were the
government, I would not agree to that.

The government then proceeded with the blockade, to prevent
more supporters from getting into Ratchaprasong. The government, after
negotiating for over two months, was frustrated in putting the situation back
under control. So, I suggested that both sides call a cease-fire and resume
talks. But, later that night, an M79 grenade was fired, convincing the
government that the UDD could not control its own members.[169]

The chances of peace talks ended at dawn on May 19, 2010 as
soldiers were mobilized to Saladaeng intersection and prepared to clear the UDD
barricades.

VII.
The Final Assault: May 19

The
Army Assault

Just after sunrise on May 19, several hundred infantry
soldiers with armored personnel carriers began deploying from Rama IV Road and
Saladaeng intersection to clear the UDD barricades along Ratchadamri Road, the
main entrance to the UDD Ratchaprasong camp.

Media began reporting that soldiers were preparing for a
final dispersal operation against the Ratchaprasong camp. Prime Minister
Abhisit and the CRES later claimed the military’s objective that day was
only to retake control of the section of Lumphini Park adjacent to the UDD
Ratchaprasong camp, because armed militants had increased their presence there.
In an interview on Al Jazeera on May 31, Abhisit said:

On May 19, the army did not move in to the center of the
protest. All it did was to secure off an area where previously there had been
grenades launched to various places from inside the protest area. And the
leaders of the demonstration decided to call off the rally. So it wasn’t
a case of the army moving in to crush the demonstrations.[170]

We didn’t expect to stop the rally that day, but the
events unfolded very quickly. Our mission was just to retake Lumphini Park
because we had found they were hiding many weapons there and it is close to
many foreign embassies. We noticed there was a lot of fire coming at us from
Lumphini Park, so the decision was made to retake Lumphini Park—but we
didn’t plan a crackdown for that day, just a retaking of Lumphini Park
and the Rama IV area.[171]

Initially, a relatively small force of about 150 to 200
mostly young recruits from the 2nd Cavalry Division walked slowly up
Ratchdamri Road towards the barricade in front of the Dusit Thani hotel (near
Saladaeng), using armored personnel carriers to open up the barricades. As the
soldiers slowly advanced on the protester barricades ahead, they repeatedly
fired live ammunition at the mostly unarmed protesters and many journalists
standing behind the barricade. Bradley Cox, a freelance cameraman, told Human
Rights Watch that he was filming behind the UDD barricades when soldiers fired
a volley of shots that struck him in the leg and killed Italian journalist
Fabio Polenghi nearby:

I entered at Rachadamri and Sarasin intersection at about
9:30 a.m., the UDD barricade was right there. There were lots of [abandoned]
tents between us and the soldiers so I couldn’t see the soldiers but
could hear their firing. There were some Red Shirts trying to take back the
area and running back and forth. I didn’t see any Red Shirts with real weapons;
they mostly had slingshots, no guns. They just had the tires to stand behind.

About 20 minutes before Fabio was shot, a bullet ricocheted
off the tire right in front of me. I saw one guy wounded as he ran back towards
the barricades, he leaped over and was bleeding from the leg.

Then there was some kind of commotion about 30-40 meters
behind us, towards the main stage, so the photographers ran over to go see what
was happening. I walked 30 meters away from the barricade and suddenly felt an
intense burning in my leg and realized I had been shot. I turned around and saw
Fabio on the ground behind me. I turned on my camera and filmed him being taken
away. Fabio was hit at the same time as me, within seconds of each other.[172]

Fabio Polenghi was pronounced dead on arrival at the
hospital from a gunshot wound to the head.[173]

Soldiers continued towards the UDD camp, and armed Black
Shirts mobilized around Rachadamri and in Lumphini Park. A BBC correspondent
told Human Rights Watch she saw armed militants running in the Ratchadamri area
and watched a group of black-clad militants with bags that appeared to hold
weapons climbing the stairs to the Ratchadamri BTS station. They told her not
to film them.[174]
A freelance journalist later secretly filmed a group of armed militants in
camouflage and black clothes at the Ratchadamri BTS station.[175]

A foreign military analyst who accompanied the soldiers
during the assault said he was stunned by the poor standard of the military
operation:

The whole operation was staggering in its incompetence. You
had scared young conscripts blazing away at the tents in Lumphini Park without
any fire control. There wasn’t the command and control that you would
expect during such an operation. There were two main operations, the movement
up the road and the operation to clear the park. They were totally
uncoordinated. When I was with the troops in the park along the fence, they
were opening fire at people in the park, including on the other military unit
that was inside the park. You had incipient “friendly fire”
incidents. The park was used essentially as a free-fire zone, the soldiers
moved and took shots along Wireless and Rama IV Road.[176]

At least two young men were shot dead by soldiers as they
took control of the Saladaeng UDD barricades.

Around the same time, the soldiers had halted on Rachadamri
Road near Lumphini Park and were standing around awaiting new orders. A group
of Special Forces soldiers came up from behind the army soldiers and engaged a
group of armed militants farther ahead near the Rachadamri BTS station. A gun
battle erupted, with the militants using M79s to fire at least eight or nine
grenades towards the soldiers gathered on Rachadamri Road. A grenade exploded
among a group of soldiers, fatally wounding one and severely injuring Canadian
freelance journalist Chandler Vandergrift, who was standing with them.
Following the clash, the soldiers received orders to evacuate the area, taking
their wounded with them but leaving the protest site virtually empty of
security forces.

UDD Leadership
Surrenders and Arson Attacks

At around 1:30 p.m. on May 19, the UDD’s leadership
made a surprise announcement: they were ending the rally and surrendering to authorities.
They urged remaining protesters to go home.[177]

Many ordinary UDD protesters were disappointed and angry at
the sudden end to the three-month-long protests. The vast majority of UDD
protesters quickly dispersed and left the area or sought safety in Wat Pathum
Wanaram, a temple that had been declared a “safe zone” according to
an agreement between the government and protest leaders. However, some Black
Shirts and UDD protesters began a campaign of arson attacks around Bangkok,
setting fire to shopping centers, government buildings, banks, and shops.

Among the arsonists’ main targets was the Central
World shopping complex, one of Southeast Asia’s biggest shopping malls,
located almost directly behind the Ratchaprasong UDD stage. In plain view,
several dozen Black Shirts and UDD protesters began breaking the windows of the
complex’s Zen wing. After some looting, they threw petrol bombs and
exploding cooking gas canisters inside the mall. Arsonists fed the flames with
plastic chairs and other flammable materials from the abandoned protest camp.
The mall was soon engulfed in flames. Praiwan Roonnok, a security guard at the
Central World, said:

The management [of Central World] told us to be on high
alert after the Red Shirts announced that they would loot and burn this
department store if the government sent soldiers to clear the Ratchaprasong
camp. On that day, May 19, the situation got worse quickly after the Red Shirt
leaders announced that they would give up. About 50 protesters and Black Shirt
militants smashed their way inside through the glass windows, and some of them
went into the underground car park. They looted the shops, looted the cars in
the car park. Then they set fire with petrol bombs. Some of them tried to blow
up cooking gas tanks. First, I thought that we should try to defend the Central
World. But when we realized that we were outnumbered and those looters and
Black Shirt militants were armed, we decided to evacuate. That was the
instruction we had received from the management. My priority was to save the
lives of the staff and members of my team. Some of my men at the underground
car park tried to fight back. But they were attacked with grenades and rifles.
One of them was shot in the leg.[178]

That afternoon, arsonists also tried to attack several media
outlets that the UDD had criticized as being anti-Thaksin or anti-UDD, including
Channel 3 television station, the Thai Post, Bangkok Post, and The
Nation. They succeeded in attacking the Maleenont Tower complex, which
houses the Channel 3 television station. Karuna Buakamsri, a Channel 3 news
announcer, was live on-air when she was told her building was on fire. She
later told Human Rights Watch how the presence of Black Shirts outside the
burning building made it difficult to evacuate:

We were live on the air reporting on the fires at Central
World when the producer came and shouted that they were burning our building as
well and I had to leave right away. It all happened so quickly. We made some
phone calls for help, and could see the smoke rising and the sound of
explosions below. When we tried to go look at what was happening [from the
windows] they fired shots at us, so we stayed in the center of the building.
The building has 12 floors, our broadcast studio is on the ninth floor and the
editorial offices were on the sixth floor. There were almost 200 people inside.…
We waited for about 20 minutes and smoke started coming out through the air
vents. One of our employees called from the basement to say we should come down
and go to the basement. Black Shirts were outside with guns—they were
burning cars in the parking lot. We went out into the parking lot and jumped
the wall and ran into the neighborhood. Maybe 30-40 of us escaped this way, but
then the men in black blocked the way and the others were forced to wait
inside.[179]

Arsonists also set fire to dozens of other major buildings
across Bangkok, including the flagship Big C store and its adjacent corporate
headquarters, the Stock Exchange of Thailand, the Bangkok Metropolitan
Electricity Authority district station, the Water Authority district station,
the historic Siam and Scala cinemas in Siam Square, Center One store near the
Victory Monument, and a significant number of branches of the Bangkok Bank,
which UDD leaders repeatedly accused of having close ties with Privy Council
President Gen. Prem Tinsulanonda and financing the rival PAD leadership, as
well as convenience stores and small privately owned shops in some areas.[180]

While the UDD leadership has sought to portray the arson
attacks as the spontaneous reaction of protesters to the dispersal of the Red
Shirt protests, many leading UDD leaders had publicly called for such attacks
months earlier in the event of a government crackdown.

For example, UDD leader Arisman Pongruengrong told
supporters at a rally at Army Headquarters in Bangkok on January 29 they should
carry out arson attacks if the government tried to disperse them, warning they
would turn the city into a “sea of fire:”

If you know they are going to [disperse] us, you
don’t need to prepare much. Just show up each with one glass bottle to
fill with gasoline. Fill it up 75cc to 1 liter. If we go to Bangkok with one
million people and one million liters of gasoline, rest assured that Bangkok
will turn into a sea of fire. This is the simple way to fight by the Red
Shirts. I am telling the soldiers, the dog servants of the Privy Council, if
you spill even one drop of the Red Shirts’ blood, it means Bangkok will
instantly turn into a sea of fire.[181]

Similarly, during a preparatory rally in Chantaburi province
on January 27, UDD leader Nuttawut Saikua warned: “If [the government]
takes control [of the Red Shirt camp], we will burn the whole country. Burn it
all down, I will take the responsibility. If they want to arrest or whatever,
they can come to me. If they seize control, burn!”[182]

Red Shirt leaders regularly called on supporters to burn and
steal from stores during the Rachaprason protests, indicating incitement or
complicity in the arson and looting attacks. For example, on April 8, 2010, UDD
leader Nuttawut Saikua told UDD protesters how he was easily frightened as a
child and used to run for cover whenever he heard loud noises. He then
suggested that the Red Shirts should run into shopping centers and loot and
burn them if they were similarly “spooked” by the army attempting
to disperse them:

Like I said, the Red Shirts are jumpy. When you [the
soldiers] shoot, they run into Gaysorn, Central World, Paragon and the hotels
around here. The way I analyze our people here, we have different reactions.
Some run to brand-name bags. Some run into jewelers or gold stores. Some drive
their cars into a shop. Some simply set fire for no reason.[183]

Beginning in their public speeches in January 2010, UDD
leaders appeared to consider acts of arson and looting as a potential defense
against a military dispersal of the UDD rally, and used such threats to deter a
repeat of the humiliating 2009 dispersal.[184] The coordinated
nature of the many arson attacks around Bangkok and the selection of the
targets also indicate that the attacks were well planned and organized.

Deaths
at Wat Phatum Wanaram

The government’s dispersal on May 19 led to gunfights
at the declared “safe zone” of Wat (temple) Phatum Wanaram
that resulted in six deaths and numerous injuries. The incident was later the
main topic of a contentious censure debate against Prime Minister Abhisit in
the Thai Parliament.[185]
Circumstances surrounding the killings remain highly contentious.

An in-depth Human Rights Watch investigation sheds some
light on the incident.

On May 15, a series of negotiations between Red Shirt leaders,
government and security representatives, and humanitarian activists led to an
agreement to declare the Wat Phatum Wanaram grounds, located just a hundred
meters from the main stage of the Ratchaprasong UDD camp, a demilitarized
“safe zone” sanctuary. Following the declaration, hundreds of women
and children demonstrators moved to the temple compound.

On May 19, following the declaration by the Red Shirt
leaders that they were surrendering and asking protesters to disperse, almost
2,000 of remaining protesters headed into the temple, as other departure routes
were either blocked, inaccessible due to heavy fighting, or considered too
dangerous. Government security forces had created an exit route near the Siam
BTS station, where departing protesters were carefully checked and placed on
buses to their home villages. But very few protesters took this exit route, as
it required them to walk towards armed soldiers with their hands raised into an
uncertain future. A foreign journalist showed Human Rights Watch footage he
took of a dense crowd of unarmed civilians heading into the temple, which he
said continued for a long time.[186]

The “safe zone” at the temple was not in a very
safe location. Wat Phatum Wanaram is very close to the Central World shopping
complex, which Red Shirt arsonists were torching at the same time as crowds
were fleeing into the temple. Throughout the afternoon and evening of May 19,
sporadic gunfire and clashes took place in the immediate vicinity of the
temple. Several foreign journalists said they saw UDD militants, some of them
armed, on the street outside the temple between 2 and 4 p.m. that day. One
photojournalist described running into a group of armed militants:

Just before 4 o’clock, I went to Henri Dunant Road
near the Paragon Shopping Center. There were three or four Black Shirts there
next to some tires and they threw something, plus there was shooting taking
place. It was too dangerous to stay there so I left. They had weapons, I
didn’t see what kind. They were also being shot at, so they were taking
cover. They were being shot at from the direction of the road.[187]

Another foreign videographer told Human Rights Watch:
“Hardcore elements were outside the temple, including some big guy whose
body was later among those [found] inside the temple—I saw him outside
the temple.”[188]
Another journalist told Human Rights Watch that “between the temple and
Central World there were some tough guys, the type of people I didn’t
want to be around.”[189]

At least two separate gunfights took place around Wat Pathum
Wanaram, one starting around 4 p.m. and a second, more intense exchange of
gunfire that began around 5:30 or 6 p.m. Andy Buncome, a journalist for the Independent
newspaper, witnessed two major shooting incidents at the temple:

Around lunch time, the Red Shirt leaders said that it was
all over, and asked people to go home. I went out again and probably got to the
temple around 3:30 to 4 p.m. Things were calm then, but tense. Some of the
malls had been set on fire.…Then we heard very clear shooting. Other reporters
said that the troops and Red Shirts were shooting at each other. We remained at
the rear of the temple. We knew there was a curfew. So we started heading out,
but we paused and went back to try and get a phone number of a monk so we could
call him later. As we were leaving around 5:30, the shooting got going again.
My colleagues ran to the back, but I was caught in the front, taking cover with
other people. I remember thinking that I should get out of there. I was
watching the number of injured pouring into the temple from outside.

I don’t know how I was hit or where the bullet came
from. I was lying down. I could not really see the gun battle, I could only
hear it. There was vast gunfire outside. The Red Shirts with guns, I think,
were out in the streets. Maybe when the army was firing back at them, some of
it was coming back into the temple. I could see some bullets ricocheting off
the walls. It is hard to know. I could see where some of the shots were hitting
and would therefore have to guess some of them were coming from the west.[190]

Human Rights Watch carried out a detailed inspection of the
temple grounds on June 13. We examined the walls and grounds of the temple, as
well as surrounding structures for gunshot damage that might indicate the
direction of the gunfire. Human Rights Watch found dozens of assault rifle
impact rounds fired into the elevated Siam BTS station at a straight angle.
Those rounds appeared to be fired from the platform farthest from Wat Pathum
Wanaram, near the entrance of the Siam Paragon center, towards the platform
closest to Wat Pathum Wanaram. On Rama I Road in front of Wat Pathum Wanaram,
impact rounds were found low on the concrete pillars of the BTS skytrain track,
indicating that they had been fired by persons approaching from the Siam
Paragon direction—that is, by soldiers—towards Wat Pathum Wanaram
at persons located in front of the temple. However, the DSI and army disputed
this analysis during a hearing at the government-appointed Independent Truth
and Reconciliation Commission of Thailand (ITRCT) on March 29, 2011 with their
ballistic trajectory analysis showing that the rounds at the Siam BTS station
were fired at an upward angle from the street level by persons at Chalermphao
junction and in front of Wat Pathum Wanaram who the authorities say were Black
Shirts.[191]

Human Rights Watch’s investigation of the walls and
grounds of Wat Pathum Wanaram gathered strong evidence that assault rifles were
fired at the temple from the tracks of the elevated BTS station, a claim the
government has repeatedly rejected. On the front western wall of the temple
(closest to Siam Paragon), at least 11 direct bullet impact rounds were visible,
shot from a sharp upper angle that could only have come from the overhead BTS
tracks.[192]
Bullet impact rounds closer to the centrally located gate of the temple hit the
wall at an angle, indicating they were shot from the same overhead position on
the BTS tracks.

Inside the temple, the most extensive evidence of gunfire
was found in the eastern front side of the temple, just behind the cooperatives
shop located against the eastern front wall. The presence of undamaged
buildings on the eastern side of the temple compound means that the gunfire
that hit inside the front eastern side could not have come from that direction,
and would therefore have come from the same elevated direction on the BTS
tracks as the impact rounds found on the outer wall discussed above. That is,
the gunshots that struck inside the temple would need to have been shot from an
elevated position to come over the wall and hit the pavement inside. In
addition, more than five bullet impact rounds, and possibly as many as 15, were
visible just inside the temple’s exit gate on the asphalt road.

Video footage of the afternoon of May 19 also shows what
appear to be soldiers on the BTS tracks that day, firing down at targets below.[193]
Thai authorities have claimed that the footage must have been taken the next
day, but the burning buildings visible on the footage as well as the gunfire
heard are consistent with events of May 19, not May 20.

An account by the military correspondent of the Bangkok
Post, based on interviews with soldiers involved in the gunfights, provides
independent corroboration of this sequence of events. A member of the Rapid
Deployment Force (RDF) of the 31st Infantry Regiment in Lopburi
province told the Bangkok Post that his unit had defied orders to remain
stationed at the Siam BTS station and had moved to the front of Wat Pathum
Wanaram in order to push back looters and arsonists, telling the correspondent,
“If we hadn’t moved out of the [Siam BTS] base, there would have
been far more damage. Siam Paragon would have been set ablaze.”[194]
Both the RDF soldier and a Special Forces soldier told the Bangkok Post
that about a dozen members of the Special Forces’ Task Force 90
positioned themselves on the BTS tracks above Wat Pathum Wanaram. The Special
Forces soldier explained: “Once the infantry soldiers decided to move in
to counter the arsonists, they had to notify the Special Forces to spread out
along the tracks and give them cover.”[195]

Eyewitnesses to the shootings provide further evidence that
armed clashes took place just outside the temple. They report that at least two
deaths took place on Rama I Road or just inside the entrance gate of the
temple’s compound. Steve Tickler, a freelance photographer, was on the
street outside the temple as the gunfight broke out. He saw at least two people
dead or dying in front of him on Rama I Road. He then helped drag a third mortally
wounded man, 28-year-old Atthachai Chumjan, into the temple:

I went back to the temple around 5 or so. There were lots
of people out on the [Rama I] street. Then there was heavy fire coming from the
direction of the Siam Center—it seemed like the army was coming down
towards the temple, so people rushed inside the temple compound. The soldiers
were firing full automatic, sustained gunfire.

I was busy changing my camera lens on Rama I street and
this guy came running up the street, down towards me [from Siam Center
direction] and then fell down heavy next to me. He tried to get out of the way
and pulled himself towards the median of the road. Blood was gushing out of his
chest. A monk ran out and we both went and picked up the wounded guy and got
him back in the temple. Then the street was deserted—there were two more
people down at the same area at the median, I have a picture of all three of
them lying there, one more was dead and the third was wounded. The one who we
pulled out also died – he was shot through his back and out through his
chest. The guy was carrying no bags, no weapons; he was just running for his
life. According to the time on my camera, he was shot just before 5:49 p.m.,
when I took the picture of him wounded.[196]

Narongsak Singmae, a UDD protester who was shot and wounded
inside the temple, explained to Human Rights Watch the moment when soldiers
opened fire:

After the leaders announced that they would surrender and
end the rally, we were not sure if we should turn ourselves in to the soldiers,
too. Who could guarantee our safety? So many of us came to hide inside Wat
Pathum. Our leaders told us that temple was a safe zone. I brought along my
wife and my son, as well as my fellow Red Shirts from Chonburi province. We got
inside the temple around 3 p.m. I spent that afternoon checking if my friends
from Na Klua [a tambon (sub-district) in Chonburi province] were all
safe. Then I sat down to rest not far from the medic tent. Around 6 p.m. I
heard gunshots coming from in front of the temple and I saw people running
toward me.… Before I could do anything, I was shot in my left leg and in
my chest. The bullet went through my leg. But luckily, the bullet that hit my
chest was stopped by a coin in my bag. Soldiers shot wildly at anyone that
moved. I saw another two men shot by soldiers as they tried to come out from
their hiding places and run for safety.[197]

Four other people were shot dead in or near the temple
compound, although the exact circumstances of their deaths require further
investigation. Among the four was a nurse, Kamolkate “Kate”
Akkhahad, 25, who was shot several times while attending to a seriously wounded
man somewhere at the front of the temple. Several witnesses assert she was shot
just near the nursing station inside the temple.[198]
A nurse told Human Rights Watch that he witnessed her being shot just at the
exit gate onto Rama I Road just a few meters outside the nursing station. She
was attending to a seriously wounded man, Winchai Manphae, 61, who had been
shot on Rama I Road and later died from his wounds. The nurse said:

I saw Nurse Kate getting shot. We worked close together. A
Red Shirt was shot just outside the gate, and our nursing station was just
inside the gate. Kate saw the wounded person outside and ran to him to help.
She was giving him resuscitation when she herself was shot. I was just inside
and saw the whole thing, because the whole time I was talking to Kate. I heard
one gunshot and then another one and lied down, and after the shots I looked up
and saw Kate down on the ground bleeding heavily. We ran and dragged her
inside.[199]

Human Rights Watch located numerous bullet impact rounds at
the exit road where the nurse said Kate was killed.

According to the same witness, another young man helping out
in the medical tent, 22 year-old Akkharadej Khankaew, was shot in the head and
body inside the medical tent in front of the temple’s cooperatives shop
shortly after providing first aid to Nurse Kate. He died from his injuries.[200]

Human Rights Watch has no information about the
circumstances of the deaths of others killed inside or outside the temple.[201]
They have been identified as Mongkhol Khemthong, 36, and Sukan Sriraksa, 31.
Witnesses to the Wat Pathum incident told Human Rights Watch that soldiers did
not allow medics and ambulances to rescue wounded protesters. Narongsak Singmae
said:

I believed many people died because medics and ambulances
were not allowed to enter Wat Pathum until almost midnight. I saw a young man
suffer from gunshot wounds for about 45 minutes before he died. Some of us
tried to crawl out from our hiding places to help the wounded and retrieve dead
bodies, but we were shot at by soldiers. Why did they open fire at us? We did
not carry any weapons. And can someone tell me why soldiers did not allow
medics and ambulances to come in?[202]

Although at least two armed Black Shirts were seen fighting
with soldiers at the Chalerm Phao junction in front of Wat Pathum Wanaram on
May 19 afternoon, none of the journalists, medics, monks, or ordinary citizens
whom Human Rights Watch interviewed described seeing any armed men inside the
Wat Pathum Wanaram compound. Some said they saw armed men discarding their
weapons and changing their clothing before entering the temple, or
“tough-looking” young men inside the temple. No witnesses or media
accounts of the Wat Pathum Wanaram events mentioned gunfire originating from
inside the temple or its compound. It would have been difficult to hide such
outgoing gunfire or weapons from the substantial press corps that was present
inside the temple throughout the night. There are also no impact rounds on the
BTS tracks or elsewhere outside the temple to suggest outgoing gunfire.

The firing of live ammunition continued for up to an hour,
with army-fired shots repeatedly striking the temple compound. Many witnesses
interviewed described heavy and sustained gunfire over a long period. This is
supported by the chronology of those suffering gunshot wounds. Andrew Buncombe,
the wounded journalist, was treated by Nurse Kate before she herself was
mortally wounded. Then the wounded nurse was assisted by Akkharadej Khankaew
before he himself was shot dead. This could not have occurred if the shooting
into the temple had not occurred over an extended period.

In sum, Human Rights Watch’s investigations found that
a group of soldiers approaching the temple on foot from the west and a second
group of soldiers located directly across from the temple on the elevated BTS
Skytrain tracks. The soldiers claimed that they engaged in a gunfight with a
group of Red Shirts, and possibly looters and arsonists, who were attempting to
reach the Siam Paragon and other shopping centers. As a result of the
shootings, at least two and possibly more persons were fatally wounded on the
main Rama I Road, and others were wounded and killed as they came to their
assistance. One person was killed and at least four were wounded from gunfire
originating from the BTS tracks that was fired into the front compound of Wat
Pathum Wanaram.

A preliminary government investigation report dated November
10, 2010 conducted by the DSI and obtained by Human Rights Watch, largely
supports our findings. The report contains testimonies of soldiers assigned to
the BTS Siam Station and along the track in front of Wat Pathum Wanaram. The
report identifies Maj. Nimit Weerawong of the 1st Battalion of the 3rd
Special Force Regiment from Lopburi province as the commanding officer of four
Special Force teams on the BTS track from the National Stadium Station to the
Siam Station. The four Special Force teams were assigned to move along the BTS
track to give protection to soldiers from the Rapid Deployment Force of the 2nd
Infantry Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, which operated on the street level.[203]

According to Major Nimit’s testimony to the DSI, on
May 19 two of his Special Force teams were on the upper level of the BTS track,
while two other Special Force teams led by Sgt. Maj. Somyot Ruamchampa were on
the lower level of the BTS track in front of Wat Pathum. Around 6 p.m., Nimit
received requests for cover fire from soldiers on the street level, and ordered
Sergeant-Major Somyot to lead six other Special Force soldiers on the lower
level of the BTS track to do so. Somyot and all of his team members used M16
assault rifles with M855 rounds (5.56mm green tip). Nimit said that Somyot's
teams exchanged gunfire with armed militants on Rama I Road and inside Wat
Pathum Wanaram for about 10 minutes.[204]

Sergeant-Major Somyot told DSI investigators that he and his
teams were stationed on the BTS track in front of Wat Pathum Wanaram. At about
6 p.m. he saw a "man in black" on Rama 1 Road and he fired seven
shots at that person. Then at about 6:10 p.m., he saw an armed man in Wat
Pathum Wanaram and he fired one shot at that person. Other team members who
said they fired shots at the "men in black" on Rama I Road and
towards Wat Pathum were Sgt. Pataranan Meesaeng, Sgt. Kriengsak Sibu, and Sgt.
Vithun Intham.[205]
The report does not say whether those targeted were hit.

DSI investigators concluded from witness's accounts and
video clips that at about 5:30 p.m., many shots were fired from the direction
of the BTS Siam Station. At least one UDD protester, Athachai Choomchan, was
wounded by gunshots from the ground level. Athachai died after he was taken to
a medic tent inside Wat Pathum Wanaram by other protesters and volunteer
workers. Mongkol Khemasa, a volunteer worker from Pohtecktung Foundation, was
shot dead while he was trying to help Athachai.

At that time, witnesses inside Wat Pathum Wanaram told the
DSI that they saw soldiers on the BTS track firing at the marked medic tent.
Kamonket Akhad, a volunteer medic, was shot dead while tending wounded
protesters inside the medic tent. Another medic, Akaradet Khankaew, was also
shot dead there while trying to rescue Kamonket. Even though DSI investigators
could not determine the exact locations where Rop Suksathit and Suwan Sriraksa
were shot and killed, their bodies were found inside Wat Pathum Wanaram with
bullet wounds, which suggested that they had been shot from a high angle.
Remains of 5.56mm green tip rounds used by the military in M16s were found in
the bodies of Mongkol, Kamonket, Rop, and Suwan. Athachai was shot clean
through so the type of bullet could not be determined. And there were not
enough bullet remains inside Akaradet's body to determine the bullet type. DSI
investigators concluded that Mongkol, Rop, and Suwan were killed by soldiers
acting on their duties. These three cases were forwarded to the police to
conduct further investigations under the civilian Criminal Procedure Code.[206]

During a meeting with Human Rights Watch, Colonel Sansern,
the CRES spokesperson, repeated his denials that the army was responsible for
the killings inside Wat Pathum Wanaram. He suggested that Red Shirt militants
had killed the six persons in an internal dispute.[207]
The suggestion flies in the face of the eyewitness accounts, physical evidence,
and forensic investigations carried out at the scene of the events.

VIII.
Protests and Violence Outside Bangkok

After the UDD begun the “Million Man March” in
Bangkok on March 12, parallel rallies took place in Khon Kaen, Ubon
Ratchathani, Udonthani, Chiang Mai, and Chiang Rai provinces—regions in
northern and northeastern Thailand that are the political stronghold of deposed
prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. These rallies were connected with the main
protest stages in Bangkok via the broadcast of the People’s Channel
satellite TV, community radio stations, and a live online feed. Thaksin often
made telecasts or telephone speeches to demonstrators, appearing on large
screens to urge them not to abandon him and stay committed to the
“struggle for democracy.”[208] Participants of
these parallel rallies were told to prepare for retaliatory action, including
besieging and burning provincial halls, if the government used violence to
disperse UDD protests in Bangkok.

On January 29, UDD leader Arisman Pongruangrong had publicly
revealed such plans to UDD protesters in front of Army headquarters in Bangkok:

We must be united in our fight … I say this to
soldiers, the Privy Council’s dog servants. If they spill one drop of the
Red Shirts’ blood, Bangkok will instantly turn into a sea of fire ... And
for those of you in the provinces and cannot be with us in Bangkok, Jatuporn
[Prompan] already told you to follow the news closely. If anything happens to
us here, you go out and gather at the provincial halls. Do not wait. Go there,
and destroy everything to the ground.[209]

Similarly, on April 3, UDD leader Jatuporn Prompan called on
UDD supporters to retaliate in their hometowns without waiting for instructions
from the leadership if the government broke up their protests in Bangkok:

I am calling on to brothers and sisters in the provinces.
Listen carefully. Your mission is to gather at the provincial halls if our
protests in Bangkok are dispersed. If that happens, you make your own decision
instantly. Do not wait for further instructions.[210]

Even UDD leaders in the so-called “moderate”
faction publicly called on several occasions from the UDD stage for arson
attacks. For example, UDD President Veera Musikhapong announced on the UDD
stage at Phan Fa Bridge in Bangkok on March 21, “You [the government] can
use violence against us ... but your strategy cannot scare us. We may be
dispersed. We may have to retreat to our homes in the countryside. That is
possible. But let me tell you this ... Every square inch of Thailand will be on
fire as we retreat.”[211]

A local UDD leader in Mukdahan told Human Rights Watch:

We discussed among ourselves what the national leadership
told us. We followed the situation in Bangkok closely and prepared to take
action. If soldiers were mobilized to disperse our brothers and sisters in
Bangkok, we would then immediately go to the provincial hall and set it on
fire. This strategy had been adopted by our brothers and sisters all over
Thailand. We would not run away and hide. When they attacked our brothers and
sisters in Bangkok, we would fight back.[212]

In response, Interior Minister Chaovarat Chanweerakul held a
video conference with 75 provincial governors on April 7, ordering them to
prepare measures to prevent attacks on provincial halls, as well as government
and private property in their provinces. According to Chaovarat, he told them:

I am confident that provincial governors can keep the
situation under control. They must do their best. Each province must have a
plan to protect the provincial hall. Government and private property will also
be protected. We will rely on the police, the Interior Ministry’s Aor Sor
[defense volunteer] units, and soldiers in the umbrella of the provincial
Internal Security Operations Command. So, I am not worried about reprisal
attacks by the UDD if the government decides to disperse the protests in
Bangkok.[213]

However, the reality was very different. Despite the
declaration of a state of emergency in 23 provinces outside Bangkok, local
authorities were unable to prevent violence throughout the period of the UDD
protests. In many provinces, there were bomb attacks and drive-by shootings
targeting businesses known to be connected with the ruling Democrat Party and
the Privy Council president, General Prem, as well as government buildings and
properties of state enterprises. For example, on March 20, a bomb exploded at
Prem Tinsulanonda School in Khon Kaen province. On April 3, two M79-launched
grenades were fired into the Lotus Department Store in Chiang Mai province. On
April 10, powerful bombs went off and almost destroyed two electricity pylons
in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province, which could cause a blackout in Bangkok
and other provinces. On April 21, an RPG caused an explosion when it was fired
at a jet fuel depot in Pathum Thani.

UDD protesters in many provinces blocked road and train
traffic to stop soldiers and police from sending reinforcements to Bangkok. On
April 25, over 300 UDD protesters in Ubon Ratchathani stormed the compound of
Ratchathani Asoke, a Buddhist center connected to PAD leader Chamlong Srimuang.
Police who arrived at the center took no action to prevent the protesters from
destroying the center and detaining seven members of Ratchathani Asoke for
several hours.[214]

Ubon
Ratchatani

On May 12, amid growing anticipation of large-scale military
operations to disperse the UDD protests in Bangkok, the UDD community radio FM
91.00 MHz (FM 91) in Ubon Ratchathani broadcast that UDD members and supporters
should stay ready and prepare to destroy the provincial hall and other
government buildings if the government dispersed the Ratchaprasong camp in
Bangkok.[215]

On May 19, violence erupted when local UDD members and
supporters believed the government was about to launch dispersal operations in
Bangkok. Hundreds of UDD protesters in Ubon Ratchathani followed the
announcement on FM 91 and went to the assembly point at the house of a local
UDD leader and community radio operator, Pichet Tabudda, starting around 5 a.m.
Then they marched to the house of former Justice Minister Suthas Ngernmuen, a
member of the Democrat Party, and burned tires in front of his house at around
10 a.m. About an hour later, they burned tires in front of the house of former
Social Development and Human Security Minister Withun Ngrambutra, also from the
Democrat Party. After that, Pichet led the protesters to a local Air Force base
and tried to storm through the gate. They fired homemade rockets at the
soldiers there and burned tires in front of the base. The protesters withdrew when
the soldiers fired warning shots in the air.

In the afternoon, more than 1,000 UDD protesters began to
surround the Ubon Ratchathani provincial hall. An official at the provincial
hall on May 19 recalled how a riot erupted:

About 1,000 protesters gathered in front of the provincial
hall at 1 p.m. They were angry that they could not enter into the compound as
all of the gates were chained and locked. They burned tires at all of the gates
and tried to push through the security units. Some of the protesters were armed
with wooden stakes, slingshots, and homemade bombs. There were about 300
police, Aor Sor [defense volunteers], and soldiers guarding the provincial
hall. The protesters went mad when they heard gunshots and saw two or three
protesters fall to the ground. They repeatedly shouted, “Soldiers shot
us!” Not long after that, I heard on the radio that DJ Toi [nickname of
local UDD leader Pichet Tabudda] made an announcement calling more Red Shirts
to come here and take over the provincial hall. By about 3 p.m., the protesters
used trucks to break through the front gate, and security units began to
retreat. I saw some of the protesters enter into the main building of the
provincial hall and set offices downstairs on fire. Another group of protesters
went around blocking the fire squads from getting close to the main building.
They attacked the fire squads with rocks and slingshots. Eventually, the
protesters seized one of the fire trucks and burned it. As I was escaping out
of the compound, I could see the entire provincial hall was burned down. The
nearby provincial council building was also on fire. I heard many gunshots at
that moment.[216]

Six protesters received gunshot wounds in a series of
clashes with security units at Ubon Ratchathani provincial hall that day. After
destroying the provincial hall, the protesters retreated and regrouped at the
station of FM 91. The next day, more than 200 soldiers and police went to the
station to arrest local UDD leader Pichet and shut down his radio station.

According to testimony given to Parliament by Police Lt.
Gen. Sompong Thongweerapraset, the provincial police commissioner of Ubon
Ratchathani, local police were not fully prepared for an outbreak of violence:

We monitored the situation closely, knowing that we did not
have enough strength to handle the outbreak of violence because almost half of
our crowd-control units had been dispatched to Bangkok, together with anti-riot
gear. We also sought assurance from the army that they would give us an advance
notice, at least 12 hours, before there would actually be a crackdown in
Bangkok. That would give us time to get ready. We would need about four hours
to arrange reinforcement from all over the province to protect the provincial
hall.

Personally, I did not expect any riots in Ubon Ratchthani.
I thought the negotiation in Bangkok, mediated by a group of senators, between
the government and the UDD would succeed. I really thought that the UDD leaders
might surrender in the next day. So, I decided not to close down the Red Shirt
community radio station [FM 91] on May 18 as instructed by the CRES. The
governor of Ubon Ratchathani also agreed with me that we should not shut down
that radio station as it would escalate the tension and trigger the outbreak
violence.

The governor and I were taken by surprise when we found out
about the dispersal in Bangkok that morning, on May 19. The governor told me to
quickly mobilize the police to the provincial hall. I could get about 300 of
them ready by noon. But most of those police were not fit and ready. They were
rather old, about 40 years old. Most of them only had shields and helmets. How
could they stop the protesters from storming into the provincial hall? Some of
the police were injured by slingshot projectiles. Fire trucks were overtaken
and set on fire by the protesters. Eventually, I had to order the police to
retreat as the provincial hall was burned down, even though I could have
ordered the police to open fire with live ammunition and kill the protesters.
But I did not give that order.[217]

Police Lieutenant General Sompong also explained why Ubon
Ratchathani authorities were not willing to use harsh measures against the
protesters:

The government and the CRES criticized Ubon Ratchathani
police as being inefficient. They also accused us as sympathetic to the Red
Shirts, thinking that was the reason why we failed to stop the riot and protect
the provincial hall. The CRES said we could shoot at the protesters when they
were charging us within the range of 35 meters and pose a threat to us. But we
have never been trained to do that before. Even if we were trained, it would
still be very difficult to do that anyway. I also want to say that police have
to work with people in the community. We know them well. We do not see them as
terrorists. We do not want to shoot and kill them. Soldiers may have different
perceptions because they are not part of the community. They are deployed to
take action. After that, they can easily return to their barracks. They do not
have to be worried about any legal consequences too. But for police, we will be
held accountable if we use violence.[218]

Udonthani

On May 16, the army called a meeting in Udonthani with local
radio and television stations at which a representative of a UDD-supporting
radio station said army commanders ordered the end of rebroadcasting online
feeds of People’s TV. The representative later said:

He [the military commander] told us not to broadcast or
report about situations of violence, and if there was a report, we had to take
out parts that had to do with violence. They also told us not to mobilize the
people and to not encourage them to go anywhere.[219]

The commander also reportedly said that since the emergency
decree was in effect, the penalties for violating this order were more severe
than usual, but did not provide details.
The
broadcaster grudgingly complied with the order. He said:

When we received the order, we really felt it was unjust,
but we had to do what we were ordered. I thought, hey, ASTV [a pro-PAD
television channel] can operate, and all the news channels of the government
can operate, but on our side, which did not like the government, we could not
broadcast what we wanted. It was so unjust … and we felt sympathetic to
the villagers, who wanted to listen to the People’s Channel. The
villagers called us to complain, they were calling us on all the phones, our
mobile phones and our house phones. They also called the phone of the radio
station to complain.[220]

Nevertheless, on the morning of May 19, UDD supporters in
Udornthani heard about the crackdown in Bangkok from pro-UDD radio stations,
including FM 97.5—the “We Love Udorn Club” radio station of
core UDD leader Kwanchai Praipana—and started gathering at the Thung Sri
Muang, a large field in front of the provincial hall. A sub-district chief told
Human Rights Watch that many people in his sub-district and throughout the
province listened to that radio station, which called for as many people as
possible to quickly gather in front of the provincial hall by making pleas for
people to come from each sub-district.[221]

Crowds began gathering in front of the provincial hall at 10
a.m. At the same time, the Udonthani Muang district chief held an urgent
meeting of all sub-district chiefs at the district office across the street
from the provincial hall. He ordered all the sub-district chiefs to find any
villagers in the crowd from their sub-district, and encourage them to go home. While
in the crowd, one of the sub-district chiefs said he met a police officer he
knew. He told Human Rights Watch:

After a while, one of the spokespersons from the radio came
over.… I had never met him before, but I had heard him on the radio. Around
his head a pakama [length of cloth common in the northeast] was wrapped,
and you could just see only a little of his face, it was like he didn’t
want people to be able to recognize him. I asked him about the leaders, and he
said there aren’t any, and I said, “But what happens if something
happens?” He said, “Well, we are consulting among ourselves about
that right now. We are waiting for the order from the center, from Bangkok, on
what they want us to do. We have to wait for the orders. The army is seizing
Rachaprasong now. They are seizing that area, and taking our leaders. If our
leaders are arrested, or killed, and the area [Rachaprasong] is invaded, then
we will invade and burn down the provincial hall. But we have to wait for the
order.” He said that if we don’t get the order, then they would not
do anything. But then as I was walking around … I could see the situation.
The loudspeakers were spreading the news, and there were men, women, old
people, and they were carrying sticks and rods and they were saying, “We
need to go, we need to fight, let’s invade [the provincial hall], we need
to help our people. There is no justice. They are killing our leaders and we
need to do something.” And all this shouting, it created a mood, an
anger, and an excitement that they needed to do something.

I kept walking, talking to this person and that person, and
the speakers at the field kept getting people fired up, saying through the
microphones that, “Bangkok is burning, they have invaded us.”
Finally, I went back and reported [to the district chief] and I said that they
[the crowd] are waiting for a signal.[222]

The district chief and sub-district chiefs saw Udorn Thani
Governor Amnat Pakarat and Col. Amnuay Julanonyang, chief of staff, 24th
Military Circle, based in Udorn Thani, and moved to join them. Aor Sor defense
volunteers provided security, but were unarmed. At approximately 11 a.m.,
Governor Amnat tried to address the crowd through loudspeakers, but protesters
drowned him with shouts and by turning up music on their sound systems. He
abandoned the effort in less than five minutes. Senior police officers tried
but failed to negotiate with protesters to remain outside the provincial hall
fence.[223]

Around 12.30 p.m., UDD protesters stormed a gate of the
provincial hall and entered the grounds. The Aor Sor fled. Protesters were
armed with metal rods, sticks, and rocks, and quickly torched six fire
department vehicles in the parking lot and an Aor Sor transport truck. Protesters
carried in cans of gasoline and tires and used them to set the old provincial
hall afire. Police called for sub-district offices to send fire trucks to douse
the blaze but diverted those that responded after protesters stopped one truck,
forced the crew out, and set it ablaze. The “new” provincial hall,
a more modern seven-floor extension, was also set ablaze after protesters
sabotaged the sprinkler system. The bottom two floors were heavily damaged.[224]

A senior municipal civil servant told Human Rights Watch
that in the early afternoon he witnessed protesters attack the lightly guarded
city municipality building, which the government had not anticipated might be a
target of protesters. He said that civil servants made an announcement on the
building’s public address system not to resist. The two security guards
quickly gave way to the protesters who entered the building, using sticks and
metal rods to smash chairs, tables, computers, and windows of the
municipality’s “one stop service” center on the ground floor.
Protesters also destroyed the municipality’s finance section on the second
floor, and invaded third, fourth, and fifth floors, before setting fire to
tires on the building’s ground floor, causing extensive smoke damage. The
civil servant said, “The Red Shirts did not cause any problems to people,
like us civil servants. They were just so angry and attacked anything that
clearly represented the government, like the building, two fire trucks in our
parking lot, and some other official government vehicles.”[225]

At approximately 2 p.m., more than 100 soldiers arrived in
the city with several army fire trucks and immediately began a clearing
operation.[226]
Troops entered the provincial hall first, firing into the air, and UDD
protesters retreated. Army fire trucks began to extinguish the fire and, after
clearing the hall, moved to the Udonthani city municipal building, again firing
in the air as the protesters fled back toward the Thung Sri Muang in front of
the provincial hall, or left the area altogether.

Witnesses reported the clearing operations against the
protesters continued for several hours until approximately 5 p.m., when
protesters attempted to advance on the residence of the Udonthani governor and
were prevented from doing so. Soldiers opened fire with live ammunition,
killing Ploen Wongma and seriously wounding three protesters, including
Abhichart Raviwat, who died in hospital 21 days later. A police officer, who is
also a UDD activist, told Human Rights Watch that soldiers were the primary
force clearing protesters:

I went to that man’s funeral [Ploen] and saw that he
was hit with many bullets, in the legs and the chest—some went through
him—I saw the body myself. And one of his relatives brought out the shirt
that the dead man was wearing that day, with all the bullet holes. He was poor,
in his early 40s. He has a daughter and she is about four or five-years-old. His
mother was there, and siblings. They are really poor: on the day I went to the
funeral I took plain rice to help them.[227]

After the army dispersed protesters in Udonthani, it moved
to terminate the broadcasts of the pro-UDD community radio stations. Between 7
and 8 p.m., a squad of approximately 30 soldiers went to the broadcasting
station of the “We Love Udon Club.” A leader of the club said local
police informed them that the army was on the way, and so everyone fled the
compound. He added, “We were not scared about being caught, but we were
scared about possibly being shot by the soldiers. We thought, ‘They can
do what they want, they could say that we were resisting and it would be like
we died for free.’” A staff member of the radio station watched
from outside the compound and reported that police remained outside as the
soldiers searched the station, cut the broadcast transmission cable, and broke
into the locked shed containing the radio transmitter. The soldiers also seized
18 folders containing the names, addresses and copies of national ID cards of
members of a funeral benefits association run by the “We Love Udon Club.”
They also smashed filing cabinets, and caused damage that the group estimates to
be around 40,000 baht (USD 1,318).[228]

Khon
Kaen

As in Udonthani, after
CRES declared the emergency decree in Khon Kaen province, army leaders invited
media broadcasters to a meeting at which they told the press not to incite the
public or encourage protests. Army representatives confirmed in the meeting
that the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), a military-dominated
security unit attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, was listening to
community radio stations at all times and said the army would not hesitate to
close any radio station violating its orders. The major UDD-leaning community
radio network based in Khon Kaen city ceased broadcasting before May 19, partly
to avoid problems with authorities. More radical UDD supporters declared they
would forcibly take over the station to broadcast their views, and threatened
to burn it down.[229]

On May 19 at 7 a.m., local UDD leader Sabrina Sar led
hundreds of UDD protesters in front of the provincial hall. By about 11 a.m., with
the number of protesters reaching around 3,000, they began to break through the
provincial hall’s western gate. Some were armed with wooden stakes, metal
pipes, and slingshots. Efforts led by Police Gen. Sakda Dechakriengkrai to
persuade protesters to leave the old building of the provincial hall were
unsuccessful. Approximately 300 police and Aor Sor members were guarding the
provincial hall when protesters started burning tires. Efforts to put out those
fires were resisted and protesters brought tires, gasoline, and cooking gas
tanks to start new fires inside various buildings that made up the provincial
hall. Protesters forced fire squads responding to situation to trying to
abandon their vehicles, which they destroyed. They also threatened to attack officials
working inside the provincial hall.

The protesters withdrew from the provincial hall when about
200 soldiers intervened. Three protesters were shot and wounded.

Around 3:30 p.m., more than 1,000 protesters went to the
local office of the government-controlled National Broadcasting Services of
Thailand (NBT) and burned down two buildings there. From 4 to 5 p.m. they
attacked three branches of the Bangkok Bank at Pracha Samosorn, Sri Chan, and
Na Muang. At first, some protesters threatened to set the banks ablaze and to
attack journalists who photographed them. But police intervened and persuaded
the protesters not to burn down the banks, partly out of concern the fire would
spread to nearby buildings.
At 5 p.m., more than 1,500 UDD protesters gathered on the road in front of the
house of Prajak Klaewklaharn, a former transportation minister from the
Bhumjaithai Party, which has been targeted by the UDD because of his defection
from the Thaksin faction to support the Abhisit government.[230]
Some protesters hurled rocks and bricks at the house, while others shook the
gate, trying to gain entry. Police stood by and did little to stop the
violence.[231]
When the gate began to give way, Prajak’s personal aide Sanya Hakhamdaeng
reportedly opened fire with a shotgun from inside the house, killing one
protester and wounding 13 others. Following the shooting, several protesters
lobbed petrol bombs into the house’s compound, setting part of the
compound on fire. Police arrested Sanya on May 28 and charged him with murder.
At time of writing, the case was still pending in the courts.[232] A
local UDD protester wounded in front of Prajak’s house told Human Rights
Watch:

Everyone in the villages was listening to the radio, and
people were calling to everyone they knew to come. People were just suggesting,
“Ok, let’s go here,” or “Let’s go there,”
and we would all get together and just go along. I
don’t remember anyone deciding that we would go to Prajak’s house,
it was just an idea and then everyone just went along. It was like there were
no leaders and no followers.

There was one protester who started to move like he was
going to pull down a picture of the King in front of the house, and I ran with
others, and yelled, “Don’t do that, leave it alone,” and many
others said the same, and then he only took down a Thai flag, and then I
didn’t see him again. The road was packed.… Then people started to
shake the gate [of the house]. I heard something like the gate falling, but
before anyone could go in, there was a huge “boom.” I was not in
the front row, so I couldn’t see clearly what happened, but I was hit in
the leg. I didn’t go down, but many of the people in front of me went
down. Then there was a second “boom” and I was hit twice in the
leg. Later I realized it was buckshot that hit me. I heard people yelling,
“Flee! Flee! He’s got a gun.” Altogether, I heard three
shots. I looked around, and people were crawling on the ground with their
elbows, trying to get away.[233]

Another protester wounded in front of Prajak’s house
told Human Rights Watch that he was arrested three days after he got out of the
hospital:

I was at my house around 10 a.m. when several police not
wearing uniforms came to see me. They said, “We want you come to look at
the photos to identify the person because we have caught the person who we
think shot everyone.” I said I didn’t see anyone but they said come
anyway, and I replied, wait a minute so I can take my medicine and wash my
wounds. They said, don’t worry you won’t be gone long, you’ll
be back before noon. At the police station they showed me some photos but I was
not able to identify anyone. And then they said, come over here and they filed
charges against me. I was shocked and angry that they lied to me to get me
there. They said the owner of the house filed charges. There was no police
summons paper. They
put me in the lock-up at noon, and there were three other people who were
wounded in front of the house, and the police had all told them the same story
about going to look at photos. And so there we all were, on crutches in jail. That
night, they brought another person at the MP’s house straight from the
hospital to the lock-up.[234]

The protester was charged with violating the emergency
decree, illegal assembly, trespass on private property, and arson. He was
subsequently released on bail. At time of writing, his case is still pending in
the court.

A young protester who was also wounded in front of
Prajak’s house told Human Rights Watch that police called the village
headman of his village, instructed him to take the young man to the Khon Kaen
district police station to identify photos, and that the young man was arrested
upon arrival and charged with trespassing on private property and arson.[235]

IX. Aftermath: Arbitrary
Detention and Surveillance

Arbitrary
Arrests and Detention

Since enforcement of the Emergency Decree on April 7, 2010,
the CRES has used emergency powers to detain hundreds of suspects without
charge for up to 30 days in unofficial detention facilities, where there are
inadequate safeguards against possible abuses in custody.[236]

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR), Thailand is obligated to take measures to ensure the
realization of basic rights even when a state of emergency is declared.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the expert body that
monitors state compliance with the ICCPR, arbitrary deprivation of liberty and
deviations from the fundamental principles of a fair trial, including the
presumption of innocence, is always prohibited.[237]

The CRES sought to arrest the UDD leaders and detain them at
the 1st Region Border Patrol Police Command in Pathumthani province.[239]
Under the Emergency Decree they could be held for seven days, which could then
be extended up to 30 days. For others arrested under the Emergency Decree, the
CRES on April 22 ordered the use of military camps in Prachinburi province
(Jakrapong Camp and Promyothi Camp) and Kanchanaburi province (Surasri Camp)
for detaining them.[240]
Human Rights Watch has learned that since at least May 12, the CRES ordered the
use of additional military camps in the provinces of Saraburi (Adisorn Camp),
Ratchaburi (Panurangsi Camp), and Chantaburi (Panasbodisriuthai Camp), as well
as Border Patrol Police facilities in Prachinburi province (Naresuarn Camp) and
Pathumthani province (1st Region Border Patrol Police Command) as
detention centers.[241]
According to Tharit Phengdit, the director-general of the Justice Ministry's
Department of Special Investigation (DSI), those accused of involvement in
political violence were interrogated by military personnel while being held at
military facilities.[242]

Apart from the cases of key leaders who surrendered to the
authorities after the dispersal of the UDD protests on May 19, the CRES has
withheld information for months about other rank-and-file protesters detained
both with and without charge. The CRES did not provide information to family
members regarding the whereabouts of most detainees during the entire period of
detention in military facilities. This violated section 12 of the Emergency
Decree, which requires that officials file a report on the arrest and detention
of suspects for submission to the court and deposit the report at their office
so that detainees’ relatives have access to it for the entire duration of
detention.

When authorities deny holding a detained individual or fail
to provide information on a person’s fate or whereabouts, the government
is committing an enforced disappearance in violation of international law.[243]

According to the Mirror Foundation, a Thai human rights
group working on enforced disappearances and missing persons, as of June 1,
more than 40 UDD protesters had been reported “missing” by their
families since the first major street clashes on April 10.[244]
The foundation reported:

The “missing” person complaints that our
foundation has received can be largely divided into three groups: those who
were killed or injured during the clashes, those who have gone into hiding, and
those we believe have been put in detention. We are making progress in tracking
down the first group with information from hospitals and emergency medical
units. For the second group, we found that the “missing” persons
have actually gone hiding to avoid getting arrested – it was their
relatives who told us so. But we are in the dark and have no information from
government agencies about how many people have been arrested and detained, as
well as the whereabouts of those people. I have repeatedly requested the CRES
to release those details so that our foundation can help inform families of the
detainees. But there has been no cooperation from the CRES.[245]

For instance, Noi Pongprayoon told Human Rights Watch on May
30 that her son, Thanapol, had gone missing two weeks earlier after going to
the UDD protest at Ratchaprasong Junction:

Mag [nickname of Thanapol] left home on the evening of May
14. He said he would be going with his friends to join the protest. I was very
worried because the shooting had already started, and I heard from the news
that many people were killed and wounded. But he told me he would be OK. He
said he could take care of himself. He told me he would leave his mobile phone
on all the time so that I could call him and check how he was doing. That was
the last time I saw him and spoke to him. His mobile phone has gone silent
since that night. I checked with many hospitals, but could not find Mag on the
list of those killed or injured during the clashes. Then, I thought that he
might be arrested because I saw the news that soldiers took Red Shirts away on
military trucks on May 19. But no one seemed to know exactly where soldiers
took those people.

My daughter went to Bang Kruay district police station to
ask if they knew anything about my son. The police there said the military was
in charge of holding the Red Shirts, and they did not have any details about my
son. They told me to go to the Tor Chor Dor [Border Patrol Police] camp in
Pathumthani province, because the military used that camp to detain some of the
Red Shirts. But they said there were other detention places in military camps
in many provinces. How could I go to all those places? I do not have enough
money. I filed a missing person report for Mag with Bang Kruay district police
station and also asked Kra Jok Ngao [Mirror Foundation] to help look for my
son. I do not know what is going on. I have the right to know what happened to
Mag. If the military arrested or killed my son, they should tell me so.[246]

Human Rights Watch found that many UDD protesters had been
barred from contacting their families while in detention. Prayong Au-piem from
Bangkok recalled:

I was at Saladaeng junction when soldiers started to clear
our barricades on May 19. I was so scared. I went to hide in a tent. There were
gunshots and explosions around me. Around noon, soldiers came to the tent where
I was hiding with other protesters. They pointed their guns at us and ordered
us to come out. They searched our bodies and took our mobile telephones and
wallets. Then they told us to line up. They said we would be sent back home by
bus. I was not quite sure what would happen. But last April, soldiers sent the
Red Shirts back home, with some pocket money, after our encampment at the
Government House was taken over. After waiting for three or four hours,
soldiers told us to get on a military truck. Then they put a canvas on top of
the truck. I had no idea where we would be taken. I started to think about the
rumors that soldiers took people away to kill and bury their bodies after the
May 1992 crackdown. I feared that I might end up like that.

We were riding on that truck for many hours. It was hot,
and I could hardly breathe. It was already dark when the truck stopped. We were
ordered to climb out and line up, dividing into two groups between men and
women. That place looked like an army camp. We were told to go inside a
building. There were bunk beds, with pillows and blankets. The next morning I
found that there were soldiers on guard outside that building. The army camp
where I was detained was situated in a valley, and there were mountains behind
the camp. But I could not figure out where I was exactly. Anyway, it seemed
that the soldiers in that camp did not ask us any questions. They just kept us
there and fed us. But we could not contact our families. It was boring and
frustrating. We woke up, ate, and talked among ourselves. We did not have any
fresh clothes. It went on like this until July 3.

On that day, I just finished my lunch when a soldier came
inside the dormitory and told me I could go home, together with 11 others. When
we went outside, there was a military bus waiting for us. Altogether, 30 of us
were put on that bus. But none of us received our mobile telephones and wallets
back. I asked the soldiers about that, but they told me that soldiers from
other units took our belongings. I found out that we were in Kanchanaburi when
the bus dropped us off in the market, without money, and with no mobile
telephones to contact our families. People in the market saw us and asked us
where we came from. We told them we were the Red Shirts who were just released
by the army. Then some of the people in the market contacted Maj. Gen. Ma
Po-ngarm, a Puea Thai Party MP. Major General Ma took us to his house and
helped us contact our families.[247]

Detained UDD protesters from other areas gave similar
accounts. For example, Nan from Bangkok, told Human Rights Watch how he was
arrested and detained after the dispersal the UDD camp at Ratchaprasong
junction:

After the leaders announced on the stage that they would
surrender, and they told us to move to Wat Prathum, I packed my belongings in
black plastic bags. My wife already went ahead to wait for me at Wat Pathum. I
was thinking that I would pack up and then go to find a taxi to go home with my
wife. But when I walked to MBK junction, soldiers at that checkpoint stopped
me. They pointed their rifles at me, and other soldiers searched my body and my
bags. Then they stripped off my clothes, and took my mobile telephone. After
that they told me to get dressed, and line up with other Red Shirts. They said
the CRES had arranged a bus to send us home. I tried to explain to those
soldiers that my wife was still waiting for me at Wat Pathum, and that I wanted
to take her home with me. But they did not listen. About 7 p.m., I was ordered
to get on a bus. But that bus took us to Klong Prem prison. I was charged with
terrorism, arson, and violating the Emergency Decree. It took me many days to
figure out how to pass a message to my wife. At that point, she already thought
I was killed because she could not contact me.[248]

On June 10, the government published a list of 417 persons
that it alleged had violated the Emergency Decree. From the northeast
provinces, Udonthani had the most detained with 80, followed by Ubon Ratchatani
(29), Mukdahan (19), and Khon Kaen (6). Charges varied but included arson (all
the cases in Khon Kaen and Mukdahan, 12 cases in Ubon, 73 cases in Udonthani);
trespassing (all the cases in Mukdahan); trespassing with weapons or in a group
larger than two persons intending to do harm (65 cases in Udonthani); violation
of the emergency decree (all the cases in Udonthani); and curfew violations (17
cases altogether, including three cases with added charges of either possessing
illicit drugs or drunk driving).

Since releasing this information, the government has not
provided further details on the number of people detained. On June 15, Kiat
Sittheeamorn, special envoy of Prime Minister Abhisit, told Human Rights Watch
during a meeting at the Thai Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New
York, that the list of 417 names comprised all the detainees.[249]
But the list actually contains only information about the protesters, Thai and
foreign, who were already charged and in formal detention in jails or juvenile
detention facilities. Although the government informed Human Rights Watch on
September 30 that no one was then being held under the Emergency Decree, it has
withheld information about those detained without charge both during and after
the UDD protests that ended in May.

Human Rights Watch’s previous research in Thailand has
found the risk of abuse significantly increases when individuals are held in
full or virtual incommunicado detention in unofficial locations, under the
control of military personnel (who lack training and experience in civilian law
enforcement), and without access to legal counsel or other effective judicial
and administrative safeguards against torture and ill-treatment. These concerns
have been greatest in Thailand's southern border provinces, where an Emergency
Decree has been enforced since 2005 to quell separatist insurgents. Human
Rights Watch's extensive investigations in the south uncovered many cases of
serious abuses committed by security personnel against detainees, including
custodial deaths, torture, and enforced disappearances.[250]

Ill-Treatment
of Detainees

Human Rights Watch has received complaints accusing soldiers
of beating some protesters and bystanders while dispersing protests in Bangkok
and in other provinces. In some cases, beatings were allegedly used as a
measure to coerce confessions.

Sompon Waengprasert testified to Pathumwan district court in
Bangkok on October 7 that soldiers from the 2nd Regiment of the 31st
Infantry Division arrested him on May 16:[251]

I am homeless. I do not have an identity card and a house
registration. Before I was arrested, I lived alone near Wat Duang Khae and
collected garbage to make a living. I cannot read or write. I did not take part
in the Red Shirt protests. I was arrested on May 16, about 9 p.m.

On that day, I was on my way to play takraw [kick
volleyball] at the National Stadium. I walked from Hualampong through Soi Chula
12 to meet my friends there. We played takraw together almost every day.
When I arrived at the National Stadium, I found that the gate was shut. At that
moment, three soldiers came and asked me what I was doing. I told them I was
waiting for my friends to play takraw. But those soldiers said they did
not think anyone was playing takraw there. Then they ordered me to go
speak with their commander. When I met the commander of those soldiers, he
asked me again what I was doing there. I gave the same answer. He then asked me
about my job. I told him I was a garbage collector. He ordered me to open my
bag, which I carried with me to keep garbage and other things I found on the
street. After that, he told me to show him that I could really play takraw.
I picked up a takraw ball and kicked it to prove that I could play. But
he then said he wanted to teach me a lesson and ordered other soldiers to
arrest me. They tied my hands behind my back and blindfolded me. They told me
not to say anything or they would beat me up.

I was taken to an army camp at the 1st Infantry
Division. After that I was sent to a Border Patrol Police Camp in Pathumthani.
Pathumwan district police came to interrogate me there. The police asked me a
few questions. Then they printed out a piece of paper, and told me to sign it.
I did not know what was written on that paper, and the police did not read it
to me. Later, after I signed that paper, the police told me I violated the
Emergency Decree. I was charged with illegal assembly, inciting unrest, and
using the routes declared off limits under the Emergency Decree.

My lawyer told me the soldiers had no reason to arrest me.
He said I was arrested outside the area that the CRES cordoned off. I did not
carry any weapon or any illegal items. I was not a Red Shirt although I
sometimes went to the protest sites to beg for food, especially when I lost
money in takraw games. I have no interest in politics. It is more
important to me to find something to eat each day. I have been detained at
Klong Prem Prison for five and a half months already.[252]

Samruay Sompong described to Human Rights Watch how a group
of soldiers on May 21 arbitrarily arrested and abused her 18-year-old nephew,
Surapong, who is autistic. The
soldiers tried to force Surapong to confess that he had taken part in the UDD
protest and was involved in burning tires near Bangkok’s Din Daeng
junction:

That afternoon, on May 21, Kan (Surapong’s nickname)
followed his brother-in-law to buy cigarettes at a grocery shop near Wat Sapan.
They went on a motorcycle, with Kan riding pillion. I started to get worried
when they did not return after half an hour. That grocery shop is not far from
our house. Three hours had passed before they came back. Kan had blood all over
his face. His brother-in-law also had bruises on his face and his body.

Kan’s
brother-in-law told me that they were stopped by a group of soldiers on their
way to Wat Sapan. Those soldiers pointed rifles at them and ordered them to get
off their motorcycle, tied their hands behind their backs, and took them to
another group of soldiers. This group of soldiers interrogated Kan and his
brother-in-law, accusing them of being members of the Red Shirts who were
involved in the protest. Kan’s brother-in-law said those soldiers got
angry when he said he and Kan had nothing to do with the Red Shirts. He tried
to explain that he was on his way to buy cigarettes. But those soldiers did not
believe him. They punched him and kicked him.… Those soldiers kept asking
if Kan was involved in the burning of tires underneath the [Din Daeng]
expressway. They were clearly angry that Kan did not say anything, and started
to punch and kick him. One of those soldiers kicked Kan so hard that he
collapsed to the ground. His brother-in-law shouted to those soldiers to stop
hurting Kan, and tried to explain that Kan did not understand what they said.
But those soldiers kept beating Kan up. They said Kan was stubborn. One of the
soldiers hit Kan’s forehead with a rifle butt.

Kan and his brother-in-law were released after those
soldiers found out that they had nothing to do with the Red Shirts. I was so
upset. How could soldiers treat people like this? Are they going to apologize
and give us compensation? I want to bring those soldiers to court.[253]

National Human Rights Commission Chairman Amara Pongsapich
told Human Rights Watch in December about reports of soldiers committing abuses
while dispersing riots in Mukdahan province. She said that on May 19 soldiers
from Pra Yod Muang Kwang camp in Sakolnakhon province and other security units
baton-charged the UDD protesters to disperse the rioters at Mukdahan provincial
hall. She said that almost everyone arrested that day, both protesters and
bystanders, were punched, kicked, and beaten up. The detainees were locked up
on two mobile prison trucks for two days, without medical treatment, before
being transferred to Mukdahan Prison on May 21.[254]

Human Rights Watch research found that the categories of
people subjected to questioning, arrest, and detention by CRES appears have
expanded well beyond the leaders and members of the UDD who directly
participated in the protests and may have been involved in violence. It
includes those suspected of sympathizing with or supporting the UDD. While the
Red Shirt protests were ongoing, on April 26 the CRES issued a chart accusing
former prime minister Thaksin, the UDD leadership, the Puea Thai Party, pro-UDD
media, university lecturers, activists, and government critics (living in
Thailand and abroad) of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy.[255]

On April 27, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep spoke about the
prospect of action against those named in the CRES’s document alleging a
plot to overthrow the monarchy. He said an arrest warrant would be issued in
cases with sufficient evidence. If necessary, orders forbidding these
individuals from leaving Thailand would also be enforced.[256]
While garnering headlines, the CRES provided little concrete evidence to justify
its accusations or its theory of an anti-monarchy conspiracy, represented in
the chart below.

The CRES’s “Anti-Monarchy” Chart as
Distributed to Media on April 26, 2010. Source: CRES

In the months since the dispersal of the protests, the CRES
has summoned hundreds of politicians, former government officials, businessmen,
activists, academics, and community radio operators. Some, such as university
professor Suthachai Yimprasert, were detained and interrogated at
military-controlled facilities.

Suthachai said he did not expect to be arrested when he went
to report to the Police Crime Suppression Division on May 23:

Police Major General Tha-ngai [Crime Suppression Division
commander] told me the CRES wanted to question me and there was an order to put
me and Somyot Pruksakasemsuk [editor of the pro-UDD Red Power magazine] in
detention at the Cavalry Center in Lopburi. Nevertheless, the police did not
call it an arrest, but told me that I was invited to be questioned by the CRES.
They told me there was nothing to be worried about. By noon I and Somyot were
transferred to Adisorn Camp in Lopburi. We were escorted by armed police
officers. The ride took about two hours. When we arrived there, soldiers
confiscated all of my documents, my watch, and my mobile phone. I was told that
I could not communicate with my family directly. I would have to tell the
soldiers what I wanted to say to my wife, and then they would make a telephone
call for me. The next day, soldiers confiscated all the six books that I brought
along with me…. On May 26, I told soldiers that I would stage a hunger
strike if they still kept my books. After I refused to eat for eight hours,
they returned my books to me. The interrogation started on May 27. The
commander of Adisorn Camp supervised the interrogation, with CRES and DSI
officials joining via video conference…. They accused me of being the
second generation of the UDD leadership and that I was preparing to mobilize an
anti-government rally in Ratchaburi…. I denied those allegations….
They kept asking me about my relationship with the UDD and Da Torpedo [Daranee
Charnchoengsilpakul, who was arrested on lese majeste charges]. They also asked
if I had anything to do in the production of pro-Thaksin magazines with
Somyot…. I was released on May 31. Somyot was still in detention when I
left Adisorn Camp. For eight days, I was detained in a tent next to a horse
stable, surrounded by three rows of razor wire. There were armed soldiers
guarding my tent all day and all night.[257]

Surveillance
and Harassment in the Provinces

After the May 19 incidents in Khon Kaen, the provincial
police analyzed photographs and videos taken by media, government officials,
and private citizens posted on information-sharing websites like YouTube. Khon
Kaen police compiled a poster using these images, and issued them to government
offices throughout the province.[258]
Based on that poster, Khon Kaen Deputy Provincial Governor Phayak Charnprasert
identified photo number 6 on the poster as Thongla Reunthip, an assistant
village headman for almost 30 years in Muang district, and ordered the local
district official to tell Thongla to turn himself him in.[259]

Thongla’s relatives told Human Rights Watch that the
district chief told Thongla to demonstrate his innocence by reporting to police
and advised that he could be bailed out to contest the case. But he was charged
with arson, jailed, and refused bail. His wife said:

He went by himself [to the protest], said he was determined
to see what was happening, and since he was wearing the phakama around
his head and had a beard, he was so easy to identify. He said the provincial
hall was already on fire when he got there, and said he saw many police and
other superiors of his who were also there, watching. Look, even in the photo
he’s talking to a policeman. He’s worked for them for many years,
they should let him go. But this is not the ordinary law, it’s the
Emergency Decree. He didn’t do anything, so he shouldn’t have
turned himself him. I told him he should just run away. Now I am crying all the
time.[260]

Authorities held Thongla in prison from his arrest on May 22
until August 23, 2010, when his case was heard by the Khon Kaen court and
dismissed for lack of evidence.[261]

Senior police officers at the Khon Kaen provincial police
headquarters told Human Rights Watch that the police poster was put together
using a wide variety of public and government information sources, but they
were unable to explain the criteria for including persons on the poster. When Human
Rights Watch noted that two different arrest warrants had apparently been
issued for the same person, depicted in the same photo in photos number 13 and
41, police officials admitted the poster had been put together in a hurry but
declined to comment further.[262]

A most wanted
poster shows suspects charged with arson in connection with events in Khon
Kaen on May 19, 2010. Thai Police Area 4 issued the poster, which was
distributed to government offices throughout Khon Kaen province in July.
Source: Thai police website

A community radio operator in Udonthani arrested for
violating the Emergency Decree alleged that the police pressured him to make a
false confession:

When I went to the
police station, I did not think they were going to arrest me. They
just gave a summons to go there to talk. But when I got there, then they issued
an arrest warrant and held me. I denied the charges but the police did not
listen to me. The police told me that I needed to confess, they said,
“You went down there, you encouraged others to go, you went to the sala
glang [provincial hall], why won’t you confess?” I said that I
didn’t go into the sala glang, I was only in that area for five
minutes at 9:30 a.m., and I did not burn anything. They said that they had my
voice on a tape, from when I was speaking on the radio, and that was their
evidence. The police also said they had photographs of me at the radio station
and in my district. They said, “Just confess, don’t worry about
it.” I said if I confess, you can put me in the prison! They didn’t
question me that much. Their questions were like, “At that time, where
were you?” Things like that, they just kept telling me to confess. But
they didn’t have much information so they could not ask detailed questions.
They just keep yelling at me to confess, it was very unjust.[263]

UDD leaders and members in the northeast frequently raised
concerns after May 19 that a state-initiated campaign of intimidation was being
mounted against them. They spoke about continuous surveillance, frequent army
and police visits to their homes, information being released into communities
aimed at unnerving local red leaders, and warnings for people to stay away from
UDD networks. A UDD district organizer who did not go to the Udonthani provincial
hall on May 19 and was in hiding in his village said:

They [the soldiers] accuse us of not loving the monarchy! That’s
what they accuse us of. When they come [to the house], there are always four
people who come, and in the van, another eight persons usually stay in the van,
every time it is this way, and they come fully armed. They came again this
morning. They do not wear uniforms, but all of them wear black clothes.
They
are armed like soldiers, they are carrying M16s. They started coming on May 20,
and since then come almost every day. They come by and if we started assembling
or start doing activities, I am sure they would arrest us.
But
we know what they are doing, and since it is the time of the Emergency Decree
now, we just hide and we talk to each other by telephone, or we will meet with
one or two people, but not more than five people because we know the Emergency
Decree rules...

In the afternoon of May 20, they were asking about me,
where is he, where did he go, did he go to Bangkok, how does he go, things like
that. So when I am here at the house, I have no happiness, I am worried all the
time, and that’s why I have to flee to my friend’s house, or other
places. I am always fleeing. Since then, the soldiers come and walk around this
area around my house, do their survey, they do a map, what is on the east of
the house, what is on the west, they have it all down on a map, and they take
photos of the area. Sometimes I am hiding in the house, and I sneakily observe
what they are doing. If they really come for me, they will take me, but they
have not met me yet.[264]

UDD activists in Khon Kaen expressed similar concerns. One
civil servant voiced concern on community radio for those jailed in Khon Kaen
for links to the Red Shirt movement:

I saw how unjustly the people in Khon Kaen are treated.
They don’t have any money, and then their relatives are arrested or go
missing. If I don’t help them, then who is going to help them? But a lot
of people are not brave enough to come out and help these people, but I do. But
I am very careful… I am being followed, and others are as well. The
message now is watch out, you should not get close to the Reds right now. With
the Emergency Decree in effect, everyone is scared.[265]

A lawyer active with the UDD in Khon Kaen also expressed
concerns for his safety, stating that he has observed cars following him with a
passenger filming. Sympathetic officials told him his phone is tapped. He added
that he is fearful and does not leave his house because a government official
informed him that he heard ISOC officials talking. According to the official,
“They said they don’t want to arrest lawyers. If it is really
necessary to do something, it’s better to “collect” them [keb
in Thai, colloquial for “disappearing” or killing them].”
The UDD lawyer said that on an average day he received three to five phone
calls from police or army officials checking on him. An assistant village chief
in a nearby village invited him to the Buddhist ordination ceremony for his
son. When he accepted and the word began to spread, the lawyer said ISOC
officials called and accused him of agitating and organizing a UDD gathering.
He told Human Rights Watch:

I feel like I don’t have a life of my own, but I
don’t know where I could flee, so I think there is nothing safer than
staying at the home. Many people think that I have been arrested because they
don’t hear my radio show anymore, so when they heard I will attend they
are very happy … I will go, but I will not stay late. As soon as the sun
goes down, I need to be back at my house. I
will not stay out after dark. I am not brave enough to go out at night. If I
drive out, it is like I am driving out to meet the bad people who want to harm
me.[266]

X. Rolling Censorship of the UDD

On April 7, 2010, in response to escalating UDD violence,
Prime Minister Abhisit declared a state of emergency in Bangkok and other parts
of the country.[267]
The Emergency Decree provides a range of special powers that limit or wholly
suspend various fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression.

Section 9 of the Emergency Decree prohibits “press
release, distribution or dissemination of letters, publications or any means of
communication containing texts which may instigate fear amongst the people or
is intended to distort information which misleads understanding of the
emergency situation to the extent of affecting the security of state or public
order or good moral of the people both in the area or locality where an
emergency situation has been declared or the entire Kingdom.”

Section 11 authorizes officials to “cancel or suspend
any contact or communication in order to prevent or terminate the serious
incident.”

In a televised speech on April 8, Abhisit said that one of
the most significant objectives behind the Emergency Decree was to stop
dissemination of false information in order to “incite division and
provoke a hateful atmosphere towards the government.”[268]
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, in charge of Security Affairs and
operating as CRES director, ordered the Information and Communication
Technology Ministry to cooperate with its contract partner, Thaicom, to cut the
broadcasting signal of the UDD’s People’s Channel television
station. Suthep accused the People’s Channel of disseminating false information,
inciting violence, and threatening national security.[269]
Within 24 hours of enforcement of the Emergency Decree, the People’s
Channel was taken off the air.[270]

On April 9, UDD protesters stormed Thaicom and reconnected
the broadcast signal of the People’s Channel. The station stayed on the
air for about 24 hours before the CRES shut it down again. A new station, Asia
Update, was set up in July 2010 to replace the People’s Channel, but with
much less critical content in its programs. To date, the People’s Channel
is still off the air, even after the state of emergency was lifted on December
22, 2010.

The CRES also shut down websites and community radio
stations accused of supporting the UDD.[271] Suthep also
ordered 36 websites to be banned immediately after the Emergency Decree came in
to effect. This included the well-known independent news portal Prachatai (http://www.prachatai.com).[272]
Suthep also used emergency powers to order internet service providers and
website hosting companies to block or remove banned websites.[273]
Some websites that Suthep targeted played a key role in relaying online audio
and video feed from the main protest sites in Bangkok. Some also carried
content the government considered critical of the monarchy, the Privy Council,
the government, and the military. Access to these websites from inside Thailand
has been rerouted to an internet page displaying the censorship order.[274]

A banned website is replaced by a page saying, “Access
to such information has been temporarily ceased due to the order of the Center
for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) under the authority of
Emergency Decree B.E 2548 (A.D. 2005).

Source: Screen grab from website

Prachatai director Chiranuch Premchaiporn recalled how her
website survived the repression of the Thaksin era and the military government,
only to be closed by Abhisit’s government:

Prachatai had survived political turbulence, acting as an
open platform for information and opinions from all sides. Since the time of
Thaksin, those in authority, as well as various political groups, had not
always been happy with what we stand for. But they somehow tolerated us. Even
when the military staged a coup in 2006, Prachatai could remain open. This is
the first time that the government shut us down. We have not received any
formal orders. Suddenly, the website can no longer be accessed anymore. It
seems that the government has blocked Prachatai at the server level, making it
impossible to gain access to the website even when you use proxy software.... I
think censorship is arbitrary, aiming to block information from the Red Shirts
or any sources that the government sees as being supportive of the Red Shirts.
Perhaps the government only wants one-sided information to be available to the
public.[275]

Thai authorities have not made public the exact number and
details of the banned websites, nor given their owners and administrators
reasons for the censorship. Until its dissolution in December 2010, the CRES
continued to order an increasing amount of internet content blocked—including
information on YouTube, Facebook, and Hi5—without court order, as
normally required under Thailand’s Computer-Related Crimes Act. Many of
the banned social network pages belonged to UDD members and sympathizers, or
contained information that alleged the government and the military were
committing human rights violations against the UDD or were critical of the
monarchy. The Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) reported on November 8,
2010, that Thai authorities had blocked 231,610 web pages (URL) since
enforcement of the Emergency Decree.[276]

In addition to imposing censorship, the CRES has also used
the Justice Ministry’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to place
cyber dissidents and critics under surveillance, especially those who
frequented banned websites. Some have been detained and interrogated in an
attempt to glean information about anti-monarchy and anti-government
activities. A member of the Prachatai and WeAreAllHuman websites, known by his
pen name Pruay Salty Head, recalled being held and interrogated by the DSI:[277]

I drove my car not too far out of my village. There was a
car making a U-turn ahead of me. Then a lady in that car opened the
driver’s door, walked out and lifted up the front hood. I immediately
thought that her car might have been broken down. I decided to steer my car
left. Then another car overtook my car from my left, which made me unable to
steer in any direction. Suddenly, there was a man, approximately 50-years-old,
wearing a business suit walking along the side of my car. That man then opened
the suit for me to view his shirt, and I saw the embossed letters
“DSI” [Department of Special Investigation]. I lowered the window.
That man asked me whether I was “Pruay.” He said that he would like
to talk with me inside the car. I told him that I wanted to contact my lawyer.
He quickly stated, “You want to make this formal then?” I opened
the passenger door and allowed him to sit inside my car. He showed me a search
warrant. After glancing through it, I said to myself that the court was very
diligent to issue a search warrant even on Sunday. That man asked me what
photos I posted on websites. I thought he was talking about altered photos [of
the King], that would constitute lese majeste. I told him I had never
posted those photos. That man also stated that I had undermined national
security.

Then he told me to go with him to my house and he told the
security guard that I was having a party with friends. Within a few minutes,
there were four or five cars following us. I came to realize that the cars
surrounding my car were all DSI cars. There were about 20 officers. They began
to search my house and swept everything [computer notebooks, books, and CDs]
into evidence bags.

When that was done, I was told to go with the officers to
the DSI headquarters. I asked whether I would then be detained. The officers
said no, telling me that they would like to ask me more questions. After
driving for a while, we arrived at the DSI headquarters. The officers lead me
upstairs. The officers told me to log on to Prachatai and WeAreAllHuman
websites. I realized that the officers actually knew what my login names and
passwords were, because the head officer told me that I used a 10-digit
combination password and it was difficult to decode. I said to the officers
that the news about my arrest might have leaked and someone had deleted my
login information from the system [at Prachatai and WeAreAllHuman]. The
officers told me to keep trying, but I still could not log on. Then, the head
officer asked me whether I told anyone that I had been arrested. I told him
that I did not inform anyone. He asked me again why the news about my arrest
was posted on Prachatai.

One of the officers told me that they had monitored me for
some time. There were stakeout teams in front of my office and in front of my
home. After that, the officers then questioned me about my ideology. They asked
me why I believed that the monarchy has been involved in politics. The officers
told me that what was posted on the websites was illegal.[278]

After the interrogation, DSI officers told Pruay that he had
not been formally charged with any offenses even though some of his online
comments could be viewed as offensive to the monarchy. They said he could be
summoned for interrogation anytime. Pruay was allowed to return home, but DSI
officers kept his computers for about a week to copy information from the hard
drives. Pruay has since become less active in making online comments.

Lese
Majeste Charges

Authorities have also used lese majeste charges under
section 112 of the Thai Penal Code and the Computer-Related Crimes Act to
arrest and prosecute UDD members and supporters.

Section 112 of the Penal Code states: "Whoever defames,
insults or threatens the King, Queen, the Heir-apparent, or the Regent, shall
be punished with imprisonment of three to 15 years." Neither the King nor
any member of the royal family has ever personally filed a criminal complaint
under this law.[279]

The Computer-Related Crimes Act broadly bundles lese
majeste offenses under section 14, criminalizing any person who commits
acts that involves import to a computer system of any computer data related
with an offense against national security under the Penal Code; and any acts
that involves the dissemination or forwarding of such computer data.

Under Prime Minister Abhisit’s government, there have reportedly
been more than 35 active cases, dozens more accusations, and at least four
persons jailed under lese majeste charges.[280]
For example, on April 1, 2010, Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) police in
Bangkok arrested Thanthawuth Thaweewarodom, known on the internet as “Red
Eagle,” who had been actively involved in creating more than 10 pro-UDD
websites under the umbrella of his “Red Thai” network.[281]The CIB accused Thanthawuth of designing and maintaining the banned Nor
Por Chor USA websites (http://www.norporchorusa.com and http://www.norporchorusa2.com),
which contain more critical material than websites in the “Red
Thai” network, including video and audio broadcast by anti-monarchy
activists that explicitly criticized the King, Queen, and other members of the
royal family. He was charged with violating the Penal Code section 112 and the
Computer-Related Crimes Act. On March 15, 2011, the Criminal Court sentenced
him to 13 years in prison.[282]

On April 29, the DSI arrested UDD sympathizer Wipas
Raksakulthai in Rayong province for committing lese majeste offenses and
violating the Computer-Related Crimes Act. According to the DSI investigation,
Wipas allegedly posted comments on his Facebook page on March 19, 2010, which
strongly criticized the King and Queen.[283]

After dispersing the UDD protests, the armed forces stepped
up measures to identify and prosecute so-called “watermelons”
(members of the green-uniformed military who were “red” on the
inside) who sided with, or were sympathetic to, the UDD, including those who
posted their opinions online. Defense Minister Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan issued an
order on October 28 ordering military units responsible for supervising internet
use to immediately report anti-monarchy messages so those involved could be
dishonorably discharged and prosecuted.[284]

On November 10, the air force announced that UDD supporter
Sqn. Ldr. Chanin Khlaikhlung had been suspended from duties and put under investigation
after he was found posting anti-monarchy comments on his Facebook page several
times.[285]
Sqn. Ldr. Chanin was charged with lese majeste offenses and
computer-related crimes.[286]

Censorship
of Community Radio

On April 8, the minister in charge of the Prime
Minister’s Office, Satit Wongnongtaey, who was responsible for media
affairs, set out criteria for closing community radio stations under the
Emergency Decree. These included broadcasting from UDD protest sites at
Ratchaprasong junction, relaying People’s Channel broadcasts, or
broadcasting programs that threatened national security, although this term was
not defined.[287]
He also stated it was illegal for UDD members and supporters to use short
message services (SMS) on mobile phone networks to disseminate information the
government viewed as inciting violence.[288]

Since then, the CRES has regularly threatened to bring
charges against operators of community radio that broadcasted UDD protests,
saying the protests were illegal and involved terrorist activities.[289]
The CRES also compiled information from local military units, provincial police
commands, provincial governors, and provincial telecommunication commissions
about community radio stations in each province. These were subsequently put
into two categories: the “black group,” which would be shut down,
consisted of community radio stations that broadcast UDD activities from protest
sites in Bangkok and openly urged people to join the protests;[290] and
the “grey group,” which included community radio stations that
broadcast information that the CRES considered to be distorted.[291]

The Campaign for Popular Media Reform reported that between
April and August 2010, armed soldiers and police were deployed to shut down
more than 47 community radio stations in 13 provinces.[292]

A community radio operator in Ubon Ratchathani province
described soldiers shutting down of his station:

I am a Red Shirt. I believe in the Red Shirt ideologies. I
wanted to struggle for democracy, to call for a fair election, and to get the
military out of politics. I think that is my constitutional right. That was
what my radio station stood for. I talked about news and political situation
for years. That did not cause troubles to anyone. People have been kept in a
box with government propaganda for too long. I wanted to expose them to the
truth. But the government of Abhisit said the Red Shirts were illegal. The
government said the protests in Bangkok were illegal, and that the Red Shirts
had become a terrorist group. Because of that, any radio stations that reported
about the protests or linked broadcasting signal with the Ratchaprasong camps
had to be taken off the air.

When soldiers and police came to my station on May 21, they
accused my station of inciting violence. That was nonsense. All I did was
report what happened on the stage at Ratchaprasong. I urged people to go to
Bangkok and help our brothers and sisters at Ratchaprasong. I also encouraged
people to make donation and give supplies to support our brothers and sisters
in Bangkok. I believe my station did not do anything wrong. We have the right
to know what was going on for real, not to just listen to government
propaganda. We have to right to undertake political actions. But the government
sent troops to shut my station down, tore down the radio antennas, and
confiscated broadcasting equipments. I do not think what they did was allowed
under the constitution. Closing a radio station entirely like this should not
be constitutional.[293]

Another community radio operator in Udonthani province said police
contacted him on May 19 to say the army had ordered police to cut the
transmission cable and take his station off the air. Several days later, police
returned, searched the station, seized the transmitter, and charged him and his
wife with violating the Emergency Decree. He told Human Rights Watch:

Let me tell you the true situation of how the radio station
was closed. There were the protests going on in Bangkok, in Ratchaprasong and
in Phan Fa, and they closed down the People’s Channel, they did not want
the people to receive information and news from the People’s Channel. I
run the community radio station that thinks differently from the Yellow Shirts,
and I thought the People’s Channel was not being treated fairly by not
letting them broadcast. I saw the government was producing the news that was
one-sided, and that the government would not allow the news to come from the
People’s Channel. So in my radio station, we took the People’s
Channel broadcast from the internet, and broadcast it.[294]

One major community radio operator feared his station would
be shut down and the transmitter destroyed, as was done elsewhere, and decided
to take his station off the air before being formally ordered to do so. Several
days later, soldiers searched the station and took away a radio transmitter. The
radio station owner said the deputy provincial governor told him that that he
would be arrested if the station started broadcasting again.[295]

A radio announcer at a Khon Kaen pro-UDD community radio
station said army leaders in Bangkok ordered provincial officials to demolish a
community radio’s broadcast tower in the Muang district. Local police
then referred the matter to the provincial governor, who raised the matter with
the station’s lawyer. Local officials backed off when the lawyer threatened
to sue for damages if officials destroyed the radio tower.[296]

Censorship of Publications

At least five UDD-related publications have been closed under
the Emergency Decree. On May 24, then army commander-in-chief Gen. Anupong
Paochinda enforced powers under sections 9 and 11 of the Emergency Decree, banning
four pro-UDD publications including Voice of Thaksin, Kwam Jing Wan
Ni (Truth Today), Thai Red News, and Wiwata (Discourse).[297]

The banned Voice of Thaksin was replaced by Red
Power. The editor, Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, claimed that Red Power’s
publication was possible because its publisher obtained a license before
enforcement of the Emergency Decree. On August 31, CRES spokesperson Col.
Sansern Kaewkamnerd spoke to the press about certain publications that he said
distorted information and affronted the monarchy, and warned that those
publications would be closed down.[298]

On September 1, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep further elaborated:

This is not media intimidation. The CRES has discussed how
to deal with publications, which claim to be mass media, but their contents are
not ordinary information. These publications incite hatred and anger among
people, and aim to cause rifts. So the CRES has ordered legal action. I
understand that one of these publications is called Red Power.[299]

On September 9, the Nonthaburi provincial governor, Wichean
Phutthiwinyu, led police to seize copies of Red Power magazine and halt
the printing presses of Golden Power Printing, the company hired to print the
magazine.[300]
The previous day, Wichean enforced emergency powers and led a team of police to
search the printing company, and seized employee records and other documents. Some
employees were also investigated.[301]

XI. Recommendations

To the Government of Thailand

Immediately conduct an impartial,
transparent, and independent inquiry into the violence of April-May 2010 and
ensure all perpetrators of serious human rights abuses are brought to justice
regardless of their status and political affiliation.

Immediately conduct a separate, impartial,
transparent, and independent inquiry into human rights abuses related to violent
demonstrations and occupation of government properties by the PAD, and
government actions against protesters in 2008.

Increase the budget and resources, and
strengthen support in terms of manpower and technical expertise, of the
National Human Rights Commission and the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of
Thailand to ensure more effective investigations and public reporting of
allegations of human rights abuses. Ensure that each commission can act
independently and has the resources and security to perform its functions. Permit
the commission’s timely and unhindered access to assistance from the
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, other UN
agencies, foreign governments, and national and international human rights
groups.

Ensure the Thai army and other military
branches, Thai police, and other government agencies fully cooperate with information
requests from the Ministry of Justice’s Department of Special
Investigation, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand, the Truth for
Reconciliation Commission of Thailand, and other official inquiries, including
those conducted by Parliamentary commissions.

Immediately make public the number of persons detained, their names, identifying information, place of origin, and other specific information of all
the persons detained for an offense under the Emergency Decree since April 7,
2010. This should include the current status of detainees, their places of
detention, and information on access to lawyers, family members, and medical
assistance. Ensure access to all detention facilities and detainees by
independent national or international humanitarian agencies.

Ensure that all persons detained by the
police and other security forces are held at recognized places of detention,
and are not subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or
punishment. Immediately make detainees’ whereabouts known to family and
legal counsel, allow regular contacts with family and unhindered access to
legal counsel of the detainee's choice. Take all necessary measures to ensure
that detainees are treated in accordance with the due process requirements of
Thai and international law. Where a person is reported as a
"disappearance," instruct relevant agencies to immediately make known
the whereabouts or circumstances of the detainee.

Provide prompt, fair, and adequate
compensation for victims and their family members for human rights violations
and misuse of force by state officials. Provide assistance to families who
suffered injury or property loss due to the demonstrations and government
crackdown.

Implement fundamental reforms of law
enforcement agencies that emphasize necessary training and adequate
remuneration so that the police can be responsible for internal security,
including riot control and overseeing demonstrations, in accordance with
international standards.

Immediately end all restrictions on media
that violate the right to freedom of expression, particularly sweeping
censorship of UDD-affiliated media outlets, com­munity radio stations, and
websites. Drop all criminal charges filed under the Computer Crimes Act and
Penal Code for peaceful expression. End arbitrary use of lese majeste charges
to intimidate and prosecute government critics and dissidents.

Promptly sign and ratify the Convention
against Enforced Disappearance and the Optional Protocol to the Convention
against Torture, and adopt all necessary legislation and other measures to
comply with their terms.

In 2011, invite the following UN special
rapporteurs and working groups to investigate and report on the situation in
Thailand, and take all necessary measures to implement their recommendations in
a timely matter:

Special
rapporteur on torture;

Special
rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions;

Special
rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion
and expression;

Working
Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances; and

Working
Group on Arbitrary Detentions.

To Leaders of the UDD, PAD, and
Other Opposition Political Groups and Political Parties

Take all necessary measures, including
frequent public statements, to ensure that members and supporters do not engage,
either directly or indirectly, in violent activities on behalf of the group.

Continually monitor, identify, and disband armed
elements within the group.

Cooperate and participate fully with the
National Human Rights Commission and with the Truth for Reconciliation
Commission of Thailand in their efforts to investigate the human rights
violations and violence.

To Foreign Governments and Intergovernmental
Institutions, including the UN Human Rights Council

Continue to press the Thai government to
meet its obligations under international human rights law. Publicly condemn
specific violations and urge the government to address them.

Actively monitor the end use of weapons and
law enforcement equipment provided to Thailand to ensure that they are not
being misused by the police, military, and other security forces to commit
human rights abuses.

Ensure that any training in human rights and
law enforcement for Thai police forces only involves personnel and units that
have not been implicated in serious human rights abuses.

Support the National Human Rights
Commission, the Truth for Reconciliation Commission of Thailand, and the human
rights community in Thailand to be able to safely monitor, investigate, and
report on allegations of abuses. Speak out against any threats, intimidation,
or other abuses against human rights defenders.

Use the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) procedures
of the UN Human Rights Council, which Thailand currently chairs, to inquire thoroughly
about human rights violations committed by the Thai government and security
forces, and press for accountability for abuses.

Acknowledgements

This report was written by Peter Bouckaert,
director of the Emergencies division of Human Rights Watch. It was edited by Brad
Adams, director of the Asia division; James Ross, legal and policy director;
and Danielle Haas in the program office of Human Rights
Watch.

Tirana Hassan, researcher in the
emergencies division, assisted the field research in Thailand.

Production assistance was provided by McKenzie
Price and Jake Scobey-Thal, associates in the Asia division; Grace Choi,
publications director; and Anna Lopriore, photo editor, who assisted with the
photo feature.

Human Rights Watch would like to thank all contacts–Thais
and foreigners–we interviewed who made this report possible, as well as
others who took risks to make information available to us.

Appendix: Timeline of Thai Political History through the Election of Thaksin Shinawatra

June 1932: End of
absolute monarchy.

November 1933: Thailand’s
first parliamentary election. Military leaders begin to assert their authority.

June 1944: Field Marshal
Plaek Phibunsongkhram (Phibun) is forced to step down in June 1944 by a rival
military faction.

May 1946: A new
constitution calls for a bicameral legislature with a popularly elected House
of Representatives and a Senate elected by House of Representatives members.

March 1946: Liberal
statesman Pridi Banomyong becomes prime minister in the general election. Two
weeks later, he is targeted by allegations orchestrated by the military and the
Democrat Party regarding the death of King Ananda Mahidol. He resigns and
leaves Thailand.

November 1947: Military
units under Phibun’s control stage a coup and briefly install a
Democrat-led proxy government.

April 1948: Phibun fully
resumes power as prime minister, bans political parties.

May 1950: Coronation of
King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

September 1955: Phibun
lifts the ban on political parties.

February 1957: Phibun is
accused of committing widespread election fraud to help his Serimanagkasila
Party win the general election.

September 1957: Field
Marshal Sarit Thanarat leads a coup that deposes Phibun.

December 1957: Sarit’s
ally, Lt. Gen. Thanom Kittikachorn, is appointed prime minister after a general
election.

October 1958: Sarit and
Thanom stage another coup, dissolve Parliament, abrogate the constitution, and establish
a ruling Revolutionary Council. There are no elections in Thailand for the next
nine years.

December, 1963: Sarit
dies.

December 1963: Thanom
becomes prime minister and sets up a government.

June 1968: A new
constitution is promulgated.

February 1969: Military
leaders used proxies in political parties to contest in the general election.
Amid allegations of massive fraud, Thanom’s Saha Prachathai Party wins a
plurality of the seats in the House of Representatives, giving it a majority in
partnership with "independents" supported by Field Marshal Praphas
Charusathien.

November 1971: Thanom
stages a coup against his own government, citing the need to suppress Communist
infiltration. He dissolves parliament and appoints himself chairman of the
National Executive Council, and serves as a caretaker government for one year.

December 1972: Thanom
appoints himself prime minister for a fourth time. Thanom, his son, Col.
Narong, and Narong’s father-in-law Praphas become known as the
“Three Tyrants.”

October 1973: More than
250,000 protesters, most from student groups and labor organizations, take to
the streets to express their grievances against the “Three
Tyrants,” and corruption, abuse of power, and human rights violations by
the military. The military government launches a series of crackdowns on
protesters.

October 14, 1973: King Bhumibol
Adulyadej directly intervenes and forces the government to resign.

October 1973 – October
1976: Political upheavals caused by urban and rural protests destabilize
the country. The military uses the deteriorating situation to claim it must strike
back to save the monarchy and the nation from what it calls a “Red
Menace” exemplified by students, intellectuals, workers, and farmers talking
publicly about socialism, redistribution of wealth, and a welfare state. The
military and right-wing politicians, including then-Deputy Prime Minister Pol.
Gen. Pramarn Adireksarn and Deputy Interior Minister Samak Sundaravej begin a
propaganda campaign against student and labor groups, accusing them of being
communist, unpatriotic, and anti-monarchy. The Village Scouts, the Krathing
Daeng (Red Gaurs), and the Nawaphon (New Force) are formed as right wing paramilitary
groups.

October 6, 1976: Members
of these right wing groups join troops from the Border Patrol Police to attack
a group of about 2,000 students inside Thammasat University, killing dozens. A
junta headed by Defense Minister Adm. Sa-ngad Chaloryu seizes power.

October 1976: Thanin
Kraivixien, an ultraconservative former judge and royalist, becomes prime
minister.

October 1977: Gen.
Kriangsak Chomanan stages a coup and ousts Thanin.

December 1978: Kriangsak
promulgates a new constitution with a popularly elected House of
Representatives, but the military still controls the cabinet and appointment of
senators.

February 1980: Kriangsak
announced increases in the price of fuel and electricity in response to an oil
crisis, provoking strong opposition from the military, politicians, and other
social sectors.

March 1980: The
influential “Young Turks” military faction and Gen. Prem
Tinsulanonda—a staunch royalist, army commander-in-chief and defense
minister—pressure Kriangsak to resign in the wake of deteriorating
inflation and economic downfall.

March 1980: Prem becomes
prime minister, starting an eight year period that will make him
Thailand’s longest serving prime minister despite never standing in an
election. Prem’s close relations with the Palace help him to control the
factionalized military. He also gains support from civilians by appointing
technocrats, elected politicians, and representatives of influential business
interests to his government. Prem maintains power through complicated balancing
acts among political parties by frequently changing partners in his coalition governments.

April 1981: Prem’s
close relationship with the Palace is evident when the “Young
Turks” military faction (led by Col. Manoon Roopkachorn) turn against him.
He rushes to Nakhon Ratchasima province, where the royal family is in residence,
and effectively blocks coup leaders from obtaining the King’s consent for
a change in power. He then mobilizes counterattacks, regains control of
Bangkok, and quells the coup attempt with minimal fighting and casualties. Gen.
Arthit Kamlangek, who is credited with a key role in securing Prem’s
victory, is promoted to become the army commander-in-chief. Officers from Class
Five (1958 graduates) of the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy, the Young
Turks' main rival faction, also receive key positions.

1983: A rift between Prem
and Arthit grows. Arthit projects a forceful image with his confrontational
approach by publicly challenging Prem’s policy.

1984: In an effort to
reduce Prem’s influence with politicians, Arthit supports active-duty and
retired military officers to press for constitutional amendments that enhance
their roles in the Senate and the cabinet.

May 1987: The showdown
with Arthit ends when Prem, with Palace support, dismisses Arthit and appoints
Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh as army commander-in-chief.Popular
discontent mounts against Prem in rural and urban areas due to economic and
social problems. Political parties capitalize on many people’s weariness of
military strongmen and demands for stable and more open political institutions
to mobilize protests against Prem’s unelected tenure.

September 1986: Chaovalit
pledges support for the “parliamentary” government, vowing “no
more coups” as long as he heads the army.

July 1988: Prem dissolves
Parliament, and calls for a new election. Leaders of the winning political
parties ask Prem to continue his premiership after the election, but he
declines. Chatichai Choonhavan of Chart Thai Party becomes the new prime
minister.

September 1998: Prem is
appointed chair of the Privy Council.

August 1988:
Chatichai’s accession as the first elected civilian prime minister since
1976 is a major step towards democratization. He shifts power from the military
and bureaucracy in favor of politicians and business groups. Elected members of
the House of Representatives, together with Chatichai’s advisors (the Ban
Phisanulok group), move to cut the military budget, investigate arms procurement
deals, and demand transparency in operations of the armed forces. Chatichai and
his advisors also remove senior military officers and civilian bureaucrats from
lucrative state enterprise boards and substitute their own proxies. However,
the Chatichai government is plagued with allegations of “money
politics” and corruption. Military leaders from the Class Five faction,
led by army commander-in-chief, Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon, move to re-assert
their influence.

February 1991: The
Chatichai government’s confrontation with the military faction reaches
breaking point when Arthit, arch rival of Prem and the Class Five faction, is
appointed deputy defense minister.

February 23, 1991: The
Class Five generals stage a coup to oust Chatichai. The junta justifies the coup
as a measure to stop the corruption of Chatichai’s government and thwart
alleged assassination plots against the royal family and Prem. The generals
sack Parliament and form the National Peacekeeping Council (NPKC), led by the
Thai Armed Forces Supreme Commander Gen. Sunthorn Kongsompong.

March 1991: Former
diplomat-turned businessman Anand Panyarachun is appointed prime minister of an
interim government and quickly becomes popular for political and economic
reforms. But Anand’s liberal stance and “clean” image
conflict with the junta that oversees the state through the NPKC. The junta
controls of the Defense Ministry and resumes its scandalous arms procurement,
which Chatichai had suspended. They also begin to venture into Thailand’s
booming satellite and telecommunication sector, awarding large-scale contracts
to business allies, including Thaksin Shinawatra. Popular support for the junta
wanes amid allegations of corruption and conflict of interest. Pro-democracy
groups, including those associated with then-Bangkok Governor Chamlong
Srimuang, join under the banner of the Campaign for Popular Democracy (CPD) to
protest the junta’s control of state powers.

March 1992: The
junta’s Samakkhitham Party wins the majority of House of Representatives
seats in the general election. Suchinda accepts an invitation to become prime
minister, breaking his promise never to aspire to the premiership.

April 1992: The CPD
launches large demonstrations in Bangkok and other provinces. The NPKC accuses
protesters of trying to overthrow the monarchy and the government.

May 18, 1992: Violence
erupts in Bangkok as police and military troops attack peaceful demonstrators
assembled at Sanam Luang in events that later become known as “Black
May.” A state of emergency is declared and thousands of troops from
various military units are deployed to crackdown on the demonstrations, and
detain leaders of the CPD.

May 20, 1992: King Bhumibol
Adulyadej summons Suchinda and CPD leader Chamlong to Chitralada Palace and, in
a scene broadcast nationwide via television, orders them to stop the violence.
Suchinda announces that Chamlong will be released from detention and that the
protesters will receive amnesty. He also agrees to support the constitutional
amendment to require the prime minister to be elected. In return, Chamlong
orders the demonstrations to disperse.

May 24, 1992: Suchinda
resigns as prime minister.

June 1992: Anand is
appointed prime minister by King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

September 1992: A fragile
civilian coalition forms after the general election, with Chuan Leekpai from
the Democrat Party as prime minister. Thai media dub the Chuan government the
“angel coalition” for siding with the opposition against the NPKC.
Chuan’s government is seen as a vehicle for instituting democratic
reforms and steering Thailand away from the legacy of dictatorship and military
intervention in politics. But little is achieved as senior Democrat Party
members are implicated in corruption and major land-grabbing scandals.

July 1995: Chuan steps
down amid mounting pressure inside and outside Parliament. Banharn Silpa-archa
from the Chart Thai Party becomes prime minister, but is immediately engulfed
in allegations of election fraud and corruption. Thai media call Banharn
“Mr. ATM,” and portray him as a politician who dispenses money to
recruit support from fellow politicians.

November 1996:
Banharn’s administration ends with dissolution of Parliament.

November 1996: Chavalit,
who retired from the army and forms the New Aspiration Party, wins the election
and forms a coalition government. He faces serious challenges from the
deteriorating economy due to massive speculative attacks on the value of Thai
baht.

July 1997:
Chavalit’s decision to float the exchange rate of Thai baht, which was
previously pegged with the US dollar, causes it to lose more than half its
value, triggering the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The Thai Stock Exchange
value drops 75 percent. Thailand’s economy slumps amidst massive layoffs.
Once-booming finance and real estate sectors collapse after many years of
profiteering and speculative investment.

November 1997: Chavalit
resigns. Chuan becomes prime minister for the second time and remains in office
until February 2001. His responses to the financial crisis are criticized as
being heavily guided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and weighted in
favor of big financial institutions at the expense of small business and
ordinary people. Against the backdrop of growing opposition to the Democrat
Party, Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai (“Thais Love Thais”) Party
emerge. The Thai Rak Thai party promises a series of populist campaigns,
including universal access to health care; a three-year debt moratorium for
farmers; and one million baht locally-managed development funds for all villages.
This platform contrasts starkly with the Chuan government, which the media
criticized for lacking sufficient concern for the suffering of the poor during
the economic crash caused by the Asian financial crisis.

[1]Article
4 of the ICCPR provides that during a time of public emergency that
“threatens the life of the nation” and is officially proclaimed,
certain rights may be circumscribed “to the extent strictly required by
the exigencies of the situation.”

[5]Constitution
of the Kingdom of Thailand, 1997, Chapter III (“Rights and Liberties of
the Thai
People”),
Chapter
VI (“The National Assembly”).

[6]Shortly
after, New Aspiration Party merged with Thai Rak Thai Party and Chavalit became
deputy prime minister in Thaksin's government. Thaksin was the first modern
Thai politician to knit together a coalition into a single party that achieved
a majority.

[7]The
National Anti-Corruption Committee (NACC) filed a case charging him and his
wife of hiding assets in telecommunication and real estate development companies
by transferring his shares to many proxies, including relatives, drivers,
gardeners, and maids. The 1997 Constitution required political office holders
and senior government officials to declare their assets, along with those of
their spouses and children under the age of 20, to the NACC when they start and
finish their terms in office.

[8]According
to the 2007 Independent Committee for the Investigation, Study and Analysis of
the Formation and Implementation of Drug Suppression Policy (ICID), chaired by
former Attorney General Khanit na Nakhon, 2,819 people were killed during the
three month-long "war on drugs" between February and April 2003. Of
those killed, 1,370 were related to drug dealing, while 878 were not. Another
571 people were killed without apparent reason.

[9]Human
Rights Watch, Not Enough Graves: The War on Drugs, HIV/AIDS, and Violations
of Human Rights, vol. 16, no. 8(C), June 2004.

[12]The
court granted bail to Pol. Maj. Ngern Tongsuk and he has since gone missing,
with relatives claiming that he was caught in a flood in September 2008.Other police officers accused of
involvement in Somchai’s case were allowed to return to duties and have
been promoted to higher positions. On March 11, 2011, the Appeal Court gave a
verdict, primarily citing insufficient evidence, absolving Ngern and other four
police officers of any criminal responsibility in the
“disappearance” of
Somchai.

[13]Prem
is commonly seen as a figure who has the King’s trust, and thus many of
his interventions are therefore assumed to reflect royal preferences. Duncan
McCargo and Ukrist Pathmanand, The Thaksinization of Thailand
(Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2004), p. 130.

[14]For
example, in April 2005, Thaksin presided over a ceremony at the Temple of the
Emerald Buddha, usually (though not exclusively) officiated by the King. The
incident sparked a furor among Thaksin’s critics, who accused him of
attempting to challenge the leadership of King Bhumiphol Adulyadej. However, in
the 1990s Sondhi had been one of Thaksin’s most prominent allies. He used
his media outlets to portray Thaksin as the future of Thailand and todefend Thaksin against allegations of
human rights violations and abuse of power. Sondhi reportedly fell out with
Thaksin in 2005 when Thaksin refused to oppose the firing of Virot Nualkhair as
a head of the state-owned Krung Thai Bank. Virot allegedly used his powerful
position to reduce Sondhi’s debts. Sondhi’s popular “Thailand
Weekly” program was taken off the air in September 2005 allegedly as a
result of pressure from the government. See, “Keeping People in the Dark:
MCOT Shut Down ‘Thailand Weekly,’” (ปิดหูปิดตาประชาชน
อสมท
สั่งปิดเมืองไทยรายสัปดาห์) Manager Daily, September 16, 2005,
http://www.gotomanager.com/news/printnews.aspx?id=39630 (accessed November 16,
2010).

[15]The
series entitled “Finland Strategy: Thailand’s Revolution
Plan?,” (ยุทธศาสตร์ฟินแลนด์: แผนเปลี่ยนการปกครองไทย?) was written by Pramote Nakhonthap and appeared in the Manager
Daily on May 17, 19, 22, 23 and 24, 2006.

[17]The
petition, which the Democrat Party publicly supported, called on the King,
through Prem, to use his powers under article 7 of the 1997 Constitution
(“Whenever no provision under this Constitution is applicable to any
case, it shall be decided in accordance with the constitutional practice in the
democratic regime of government with the King as Head of the State.”)

[18]In
addition to Sondthi, other core leaders of the PAD were Chamlong Srimuang
(former Bangkok governor and member of the fundamentalist Buddhist sect Santi
Asoke), Somsak Kosaisuk (leader of state-owned enterprise unions), Somkeit
Pongpaibul (political activist and member of the Democrat Party), and Pipob
Thongchai (former leader of the influential Campaign for Popular Democracy).

[19]The Thai Rak Thai Party was
accused of bribing small parties to register candidates in the opposition
strongholds in order to avoid the 20 percent minimum vote requirement if only
one party ran in those
constituencies.

[20]“Thai PM Thaksin Says he’ll Step Down” Channel
News Asia, April 4, 2006, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/201527/1/.html
(accessed February 24, 2011). At the same time, Thaksin attempted to muster his
supporters to counter the PAD. After a rally at Bangkok’s Royal Plaza on
March 3, 2006, the “Caravan of the Poor” was created largely with
support from Thaksin’s close aide, Newin Chidchob. Members of the
“Caravan of the Poor” staged a rally in Bangkok, in parallel to the
PAD. On March 30, 2006, more than 2,000 members of the group went to surround
the headquarters of the Nation Group, which they accused of bias against
Thaksin.

[21]The King stated: “Should the election be
nullified? You have the right to say what's appropriate or not. If it's not
appropriate, it is not to say the government is not good. But as far as I'm
concerned, a one party election is not normal. The one candidate situation is
undemocratic. When an election is not democratic, you should look carefully
into the administrative issues. I ask you to do the best you can. If you cannot
do it, then it should be you who resign, not the government, for failing to do
your duty. Carefully review the vows you have
made.”
“His
Majesty the King’s April 26 Speeches,” The Nation, April 27,
2006,
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/04/27/headlines/headlines_30002592.php.

[22]See
a collection of news regarding Prem’s political opinions at General
Prem Tinsulanonda,
http://www.generalprem.com/news.html
(accessed February 4, 2011).

[23]Prem
Tinsulanonda, “A Special Lecture to CRMA Cadets at Chulachomklao Royal
Military

Academy,” July 14, 2006,
http://www.crma.ac.th/speech/speech.html (accessed on February 22, 2011).

[28]Thailand
has had 18 constitutions since changing in 1932 from an absolute monarchy to a
constitutional democracy.

[29] In
instances when the proposed draft failed to pass the referendum, the CNS had
power to adopt its own version of a constitution by amending previous
constitutions of Thailand within 30 days after the referendum date.

[33]
“PAD Calls Rally to Protest Rewrite,” The Nation, May 23,
2008,
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/PAD-calls-rally-to-protest-rewrite-30073778.html
(accessed February 20, 2011). The PAD also accused the Samak of government of
being unpatriotic regarding the bilateral disputes with Cambodia over the
border demarcation and registration of Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage
Site.

[34]
Kwanchai became of the core leaders of the UDD protests in 2009 and 2010.

[36] The
court ruled 5 to 4 that Thaksin was guilty of conflict of interest while he was
prime minister by facilitating his wife’s land purchase of land from the
Bank of Thailand’s Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF) at a
discounted price in 2003.

[37] After
British authorities revoked his visa in 2008, Thaksin has sought refuge in many
places using his political and business connections, including China, Dubai,
Cambodia, Russia, and Montenegro. He is currently in Dubai, and actively
involved in Thai politics.

[38] See
Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand (2007), sections 265 and 267,
http://www.senate.go.th/th_senate/English/constitution2007.pdf.

[39] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx7n_BnRcv0. Senior military
commanders, leaders of the Democrat Party, leaders of the PAD, and members of
the Privy Council attended the funeral.

[41]“End of Protests Is Time for Accountability,” Human
Rights Watch news release, April 15, 2009,
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/15/thailand-end-protests-time-accountability.

[42] The
UDD protesters were photographed individually, and had details of their
identification cards recorded by police before they left Bangkok. The UDD
leaders were released on bail after the government lifted the state of
emergency on April 24, 2009.

[43]During dispersal operations on April 13, 2009, Thai and foreign
journalists were allowed to closely follow the troops. The UDD claims that at
least six demonstrators were killed during the crackdown and their bodies taken
away by the army, but has not been able to substantiate this claim with
independent sources.

[51]Ari
Krainara was elected a member of Parliament in 2006 from the Thai Rak Thai
Party in Nakhin Sri Thamarat province. Following the September 2006 coup, he
joined with others to build the anti-coup network that ultimately became the
UDD, mobilizing in particular former and current student activists from
Ramkhamhaeng University.

[54]
Officials from the Attorney General’s Office said during a senate hearing
on March 3, 2011, that about 30 to 50 heavily armed Black Shirts were engaged
in a series of attacks on military and civilian targets.
“Attorney-General Joined DSI Accusing Soldiers Shot Red Shirts,” (อสส.จับมือ
DSI โยนบาปทหารยิงแดง)Asia Satellite TV, March 3, 2011,
http://www.astv-tv.com/news1/viewnews.php?data_id=1009710&numcate=1
(accessed March 3, 2011).

[69]The
subsequent arrest of Arisman triggered UDD protesters, led by former MP Suporn
“Rambo” Attawong, to violently attack the Interior Ministry in
Bangkok on April 12, 2009, while Prime Minister Abhisit was meeting with senior
government officials. The UDD protesters smashed the windshields of official
cars with concrete blocks and beat and detained a number of officials,
including the secretary-general of the prime minister, Niphon Prompan. See“Thailand: End of Protests is Time
for Accountability,” Human Rights Watch news release, April 15, 2009,
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/15/thailand-end-protests-time-accountability.

[70]See
“Arisman invaded Thai Parliament house,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHD2LrrTt88 (accessed August 7, 2010); Other
leaders of the UDD, who joined Arisman in the Parliament raid, such as Payap
Panket, Kwanchai Praipana, and Suporn Attawong, would play a major role in many
violent attacks against the security forces and civilians.

[76]Santipong
Inchan, for example, was shot with a rubber bullet in his right eye as he and
other protesters clashed with soldiers at Khok Wua junction on April 10, 2010.
His eye was damaged and had to be surgically removed.

[81] None of the assault rifles were fitted with a blank firing adaptor
(BFA), which prevents gases from escaping and allows the rifle to retain enough
energy from the discharged blank to force the bolt to retract, ejecting the
spent blank shell and loading a new blank round. Without a BFA, the operator of
an assault rifle firing blanks must manually operate the weapon’s charging
handle to chamber another blank round. But none of the soldiers was seen
recharging their weapons manually, despite firing repeated shots.

[94]On February
28, 2011, the Justice Ministry’s Department of
Special Investigation (DSI) gave a press conference regarding the autopsy
examination of Hiruyuki. The press conference stated that the case remained
inconclusive and no remains of bullet were found in his body. One witness,
according to the DSI, believed that Hiroyuki was shot from the soldier side.
However, the DSI pointed out that the wound is larger than what could possibly be
caused by a 5.56mm bullet, commonly used by the soldiers with
M16 and TAR21 assault rifles, as alleged by the UDD. The DSI said the wound is
consistent with what is caused by a 7.62mm bullet of AK47, or 05 NATO, or SKS
assault rifles, which were not commissioned by the army during the dispersal
operations.

[137]
Residents in the neighborhoods around Ratchaprasong had to register their
national identification cards with soldiers in order to receive passage
permission. “Battle Line on Indra-Phayathai,” (แนวรบอินทรา-พญาไท) Red News, May 15, 2010,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YYa_JJbyzo&feature=related (accessed April
2, 2011).

[139]
Thomas Fuller and Seth Mydans, “Thai General Shot; Army Moves to Face
Protesters,” New York Times, May 13, 2010.

[140] Seth
Mydans and Thomas Fuller, “Renegade Thai General Dies as Chaos
Continues,” New York Times, May 17, 2010.

[141]
ICCPR, art. 6(1) states that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his
life.”

[142] Basic
Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials,
adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and
the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, 27 August to 7 September 1990, U.N. Doc.
A/CONF.144/28/Rev.1 at 112 (1990), principle 9.

[145]Khattiya
posted lengthy comments on his banned website (http://www.sae-dang.net/webboard/read.php?tid=112&fpage=3)
about the operations of the “Ronin Warriors” in attacking the
government troops on Aril 10. See “Seh Daeng Commented on the Bloody
April Day,” (เสธ.แดง
แสดงความคิดเห็นวัน
เมษาทมิฬ),
April 13, 2010, republished on
http://vikingsx.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post_7473.html (accessed March 1,
2011).

[147]Nirmal
Ghosh, “Nobody Messes with Seh Daeng,” Straits Times,
October 23, 2008. Around the same time, Khattiya proposed to Prime Minister
Samak to clear the Yellow Shirt protesters from the area around Government
House by dropping snakes on the protesters from helicopters, a solution Samak
turned down.

[153]These
steps were: informing the protesters that their action
violated the law; show of force; use of shields; use of water cannon; use of
high-power amplifiers; use of tear gas; and use of batons and rubber bullets.
CRES Press Conference, April 10, 2010. On April 20 and April 27, the CRES
announced that more leeway was being given to soldiers to use stronger
non-lethal measures in response to the greater use of various weapons by the
UDD demonstrators.

[154]An
official bulletin of the Prime Minister’s office, “Frequently Asked
Questions About the Current Political Situation in Thailand,” dated after
the operation had finished (May 29, 2010), gives a slightly different set of
rules:

When the officers started to cordon
the protest areas on 13 May, their instructions were clear. Use of live bullets
was limited to three situations only, namely, 1) as warning shots, 2) for
self-defense so as to protect the lives of officers and the public when
absolutely necessary, and 3) to shoot at clearly identified individuals armed
with weapons, who might otherwise cause harm to officers and members of the
public.

[155]Under the
UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials,
law enforcement officials, including members of the armed forces engaged in law
enforcement, “shall not use firearms against persons except in
self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or
serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime
involving grave threat to life” and “only when less extreme means
are insufficient to achieve these objectives. In any event, intentional lethal
use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect
life.” Before employing firearms, “law enforcement officials shall
identify themselves as such and give a clear warning of their intent to use
firearms, with sufficient time for the warning to be observed, unless to do so
would unduly place the law enforcement officials at risk or would create a risk
of death or serious harm to other persons, or would be clearly inappropriate or
pointless in the circumstances of the
incident.”
Basic
Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials,
Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of
Offenders, Havana, 27 August to 7 September 1990, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.144/28/Rev.1
at 112 (1990), paras. 9-10.

[167]
“Soldiers Shot Nation Journalist,” (ทหารยิงผู้สื่อข่าวเนชั่น) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddjS4SbNlXk&feature=related
(accessed April 2, 2011). Chaiwat Pumpuang, a photographer for the Nation who
was shot in the leg on Ratchaprarop Road on May 15, said at the hearing
organized by the People’s Information Center on September 25, 2010 that
he and his friend were wearing bullet-proof vests with the word
“PRESS”, and press armbands. He rode a motorcycle into Soi Rangnam
at about 10.30 am, and passed through to Ratchaprarop Road. He saw protesters
fighting soldiers with home-made bamboo rockets and firecrackers. He also saw
three dead bodies, which protesters were trying to drag away amid heavy gunfire
from soldiers. Chaiwat said he kept taking photos, assuming that he would not
be shot, but he was shot in the leg at around 3 pm. About 25-30 minutes later,
soldiers came to take him to a military medical
vehicle.

[168]
“Senator explains talks with Reds to try to avoid violence,” The
Nation, May 31, 2010.

[173]Deputy
Prime Minister Suthep later incorrectly stated at a press conference that
Polenghi had been killed together with a soldier by a grenade launched from an
M79 by protesters, apparently confusing the shooting death of Polenghi with the
wounding of Canadian freelance journalist Chandler Vandergrift in a separate
incident described below.

[180]The management of the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel, which was not destroyed
despite its proximity to the Central World, denied that they were involved with
the Red Shirts even though one of the main shareholders was linked with
Thaksin’s close aide, Pongthep Thepkanjana, “Erawan Hotel Denies
Giving Support to UDD Leaders,” (รร.เอราวัณโต้ข่าวเอื้ออาทรแกนนำ
นปช.) Thai Recent News, April 9, 2010,
http://thairecent.com/Business/2010/628534/ (accessed April 2, 2011).

[181]See a compilation of
speeches given by UDD leaders inciting arson attacks on government and civilian
targets. “Evidence of Red-shirts' Involvement in Arson Attacks,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJNPfB4_mgs&feature=related (accessed April
2,
2011).

[192]One
of the bullet impact rounds is located on the western front wall and has a bus
stop station immediately in front of it, so the bullet passed between the
narrow gap between the bus stop and the western front wall, indicating the
sharpness of the angle it was fired from.

[193]Video
footage of the afternoon of May 19, 2010 showing what appear to be soldiers on
the BTS tracks opposite to Wat Pathum Wanaram. The soldiers were firing down at
targets below. “Wat Pratum 19 May 2010,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJRnM28jwkk&feature=channel (accessed April
2, 2011).

[194]Wassana
Nanuam, “Let the Truth Be Known: What Happened at the Temple,” Bangkok
Post, June 10, 2010.

[201]Journalist
Steve Tickler saw two seriously wounded people outside the temple, but only
one, Atthachai Chumjan, has been positively identified. The second person may
have been Winchai Manphae, who was being treated by Nurse Kate when she was
shot. Thus, it is unclear whether the eyewitness accounts gathered by Human
Rights Watch account for four or five of the six deaths recorded.

[230]UDD
wrath for the Bhumjaithai Party was the result of its founder, Newin Chidchob,
and other key leaders having defected from Thaksin’s faction to assist
Prime Minister Abhisit form the current coalition government.

[231]Police
stood by idle as UDD protesters gathered in front of Prajak’s house and
the situation became rather
tense.
When
protesters began to shake the front gate of the house, Prajak’s assistant
opened fire at the protesters from inside the house, killing one and injuring
13 others. Some protesters also lobbed petrol bombs into the house’s
compound. “How to Fight Red Shirt Rebels,” (วิธีการต่อสู้กับกบฏเสื้อแดง) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27a_6RRKWcg (accessed February 4,
2011).

[232]Sanya
was arrested on May 28 and charged with murder. See “Police Arrested
Secretary of Former Deputy Transportation Minister for Shooting Red Shirts That
Burned His Boss’s House,” (ตร.รวบแล้ว
เลขาฯอดีต
รมช.คมนาคม"ประจักษ์" ยิงเสื้อแดงบุกวางเพลิงบ้านพักนาย) Matichon, May 28, 2010.

[236]See full
text of the Emergency Decree at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/482b005f2.html.
On April 10, Thailand formally derogated from its ICCPR
obligations under the right to freedom of movement (article 12), freedom of
expression and the press (article 19), and peaceful assembly (article 21) in
the areas under the Emergency Decree. The government did not derogate from the
prohibition on arbitrary arrest and detention (article 9), or the right to a
fair trial (article
14).
International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), G.A. res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N.
GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered
into force Mar. 23, 1976. http://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/CN/2010/CN.375.2010-Eng.pdf

[237]Human
Rights Committee, General Comment 29 States of Emergency (article 4), U.N. Doc.
CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.11 (2001), reprinted in Compilation of General Comments and
General Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, U.N. Doc.
HRI/GEN/1/Rev.6 at 186 (2003), para. 11 (“States
parties may in no circumstances invoke article 4 of the Covenant as
justification for acting in violation of humanitarian law or peremptory norms
of international law, for instance by taking hostages, by imposing collective
punishments, through arbitrary deprivations of liberty or by deviating from
fundamental principles of fair trial, including the presumption of innocence.”).

[251] On
May 16, 18 soldiers from the 2nd Regiment of the 31st
Infantry Division (Lopburi province) set up a checkpoint together with 20
police in Soi Chula 12 to stop people from joining the UDD protest at
Ratchaprasong junction. The checkpoint was set up after the CRES announced that
the UDD protest at Ratchaprasong was in violation of the Emergency Decree.
Sompon was among the 15 people arrested at that checkpoint on May
16.

[252]Testimony
given by Sompon Waengprasert to Pathumwan district court, Bangkok, October 7,
2010.

[259]The photo
from the police poster was used the day after Thongla’s arrest on the
front page of Thailand’s largest Thai language daily newspaper Thai
Rath along with a report about his
arrest.
The
family presented Human Rights Watch with a copy and complained about the
police’s use of the media to try and make Thongla appear
guilty.
Human
Rights Watch interview with Mrs. Samai Reunthip, Ku Kam sub-district, Muang
district, Khon Kaen, and relatives, July 6, 2010.

[268]Other
objectives were to return normalcy back to the areas, which are currently
occupied by the demonstrators; to take legal action against the protest
leaders; and to enable other measures to be taken more effectively in order to
restore peace and stability as soon as possible, “Televised Address by PM
Abhisit: 8 April, 21.30 Hrs,” CRES http://www.capothai.org/capothai/televised-address-by-pm-abhisit-8-april-2130-hrs (accessed December 12, 2010).

[279]
During his birthday speech in 2005, King Bhumibol publicly encouraged
criticism: "Actually, I must also be criticized. I am not afraid if the
criticism concerns what I do wrong … the King can do wrong." See:
“Royal Birthday Address: ‘King Can Do Wrong’,” The
Nation, December 5, 2005,
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/12/05/headlines/data/headlines_19334288.html
(accessed December 11, 2010).

[280]Details
of pending and convicted lese majeste cases can be found at Political
Prisoners in Thailand (http://thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com).